


Harriet Evans and the Goblet of Fire

by themultifandomsb_tch



Series: The Harriet Evans Series [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Triwizard Tournament, gender swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 99,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28771524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themultifandomsb_tch/pseuds/themultifandomsb_tch
Summary: It is the summer holidays and soon Harriet Evans will be starting her fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harriet is counting the days: there are new spells to be learnt, more Qudditch to be played, and Hogwarts castle to continue exploring. But Harriet needs to be careful - there are unexpected dangers lurking...Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but everyone is the opposite gender.
Series: The Harriet Evans Series [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546018
Kudos: 2





	1. The Riddle House

**Author's Note:**

> All rights to the story and characters belong to J. K. Rowling.

The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it “the Riddle House,” even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there. It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now damp, derelict, and unoccupied.

The Little Hangletons all agreed that the old house was “creepy.” Half a century ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce. The story had been picked over so many times, and had been embroidered in so many places, that nobody was quite sure what the truth was anymore. Every version of the tale, however, started in the same place: Fifty years before, at daybreak on a fine summer’s morning when the Riddle House had still been well kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles dead.

The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused as many people as she could.

“Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!”

The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up daughter, Tomina, had been, if anything, worse. All the villagers cared about was the identity of their murderer — for plainly, three apparently healthy people did not all drop dead of natural causes on the same night.

The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade that night; the whole village seemed to have turned out to discuss the murders. They were rewarded for leaving their firesides when the Riddles’ cook arrived dramatically in their midst and announced to the suddenly silent pub that a woman called Fran Bryce had just been arrested.

“Fran!” cried several people. “Never!”

Fran Bryce was the Riddles’ gardener. She lived alone in a run-down cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House. Fran had come back from the war with a very stiff leg and a great dislike of crowds and loud noises, and had been working for the Riddles ever since.

There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.

“Always thought she was odd,” she told the eagerly listening villagers, after her fourth sherry. “Unfriendly, like. I’m sure if I’ve offered her a cuppa once, I’ve offered it a hundred times. Never wanted to mix, she didn’t.”

“Ah, now,” said a woman at the bar, “she had a hard war, Fran. She likes the quiet life. That’s no reason to —”

“Who else had a key to the back door, then?” barked the cook. “There’s been a spare key hanging in the gardener’s cottage far back as I can remember! Nobody forced the door last night! No broken windows! All Fran had to do was creep up to the big house while we was all sleeping...”

The villagers exchanged dark looks.

“I always thought that she had a nasty look about her, right enough,” grunted a man at the bar.

“War turned her funny, if you ask me,” said the landlord.

“Told you I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of Fran, didn’t I, Dot?” said an excited woman in the corner.

“Horrible temper,” said Dot, nodding fervently. “I remember, when she was a kid...”

By the following morning, hardly anyone in Little Hangleton doubted that Fran Bryce had killed the Riddles. But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in the dark and dingy police station, Fran was stubbornly repeating, again and again, that she was innocent, and that the only person she had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles’ deaths had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody else in the village had seen any such boy, and the police were quite sure Fran had invented him.

Then, just when things were looking very serious for Fran, the report on the Riddles’ bodies came back and changed everything. The police had never read an odder report. A team of doctors had examined the bodies and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed, shot, strangles, suffocated, or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all. In fact (the report continued, in a tone of unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all appeared to be in perfect health — apart from the fact that they were all dead. The doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face — but as the frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being frightened to death?

As there was no proof that the Riddles had been murdered at all, the police were forced to let Fran go. The Riddles were buried in the Little Hangleton churchyard, and their graves remained objects of curiosity for a while. To everyone’s surprise, and amid a cloud of suspicion, Fran Bryce returned to his cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House.

“As far as I’m concerned, she killed them, and I don’t care what the police say,” said Dot in the Hanged Man. “And if she had any decency, she’d leave here, knowing as how we knows she did it.”

But Fran did not leave. She stayed to tend the garden for the next family who lived in the Riddle House, and then the next — for neither family stayed long.

Perhaps it was partly because of Fran that the new owners said there was a nasty feeling about the place, which, in the absence of inhabitants, started to fall into disrepair.

The wealthy man who owned the Riddle House these days neither lived there nor put it to any use; they said in the village that he kept it for “tax reasons,” though nobody was very clear what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay Fran to do the gardening, however. Fran was nearing her seventy-seventh birthday now, very deaf, her bad leg stiffer than ever, but could be seen pottering around the flower beds in fine weather, even though the weeds were starting to creep up on her, try as she might to suppress them.

Weeds were not the only things Fran had to contend with either. Boys from the village made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddle House. They rode their bicycles over the lawns Fran worked so hard to keep smooth. Once or twice, they broke into the old house for a dare. They knew that old Fran’s devotion to the house and the grounds amounted almost to an obsession, and it amused them to see her limping across the garden, brandishing her stick and yelling croakily at them. Fran, for her part, believed the boys tormented her because they, like their parents and grandparents, thought her a murderer. So when Fran awoke one night in August and saw something very odd up at the old house, she merely assumed that the boys had gone one step further in their attempts to punish her.

It was Fran’s bad leg that woke her; it was paining her worse than ever in her old age. She got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling her hot-water bottle to ease the stiffness in her knee. Standing at the sink, filling the kettle, she looked up at the Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in its upper windows. Fran knew at once what was going on. The boys had broken into the house again, and judging by the flickering quality of the light, they had started a fire.

Fran had no telephone, in any case, she had deeply mistrusted the police ever since they had taken her in for questioning about the Riddles’ deaths. She put down the kettle at once, hurried back upstairs as fast as her bad leg would allow, and was soon back in her kitchen, fully dressed and removing a rusty old key from its hook by the door. She picked up her walking stick, which was propped against the wall, and set off into the night.

The front door of the Riddle House bore no sign of being forced, nor did any of the windows. Fran limped around to the back of the house until she reached a door almost completely hidden by ivy, took out the old key, put it into the lock, and opened the door noiselessly.

She let herself into the cavernous kitchen. Fran had not entered it for many years; nevertheless, although it was very dark, she remembered where the door into the hall was, and she groped her way towards it, her nostrils full of the smell of decay, ears pricked for any sound of footsteps or voices from overhead. She reached the hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side of the front door, and started to climb the stairs, blessing the dust that lay thick upon the stone, because it muffled the sound of her feet and stick. On the landing, Fran turned right, and saw at once where the intruders were: At the every end of the passage a door stood ajar, and a flickering light shone through the gap, casting a long sliver of gold across the black floor. Fran edged closer and closer, she was able to see a narrow slice of the room beyond.

The fire, she now saw, had been lit in the grate. This surprised her. Then she stopped moving and listened intently, for a woman’s voice spoke within the room; it sounded timid and fearful.

“There is a little more in the bottle, My Lord, if you are still hungry.”

“Later,” said a second voice. This belonged to a man — but it was strangely high-pitched, and cold as a sudden blast of icy wind. Something about that voice made the sparse hairs on the back of Fran’s neck stand up. “Move me closer to the fire, Wormtail.”

Fran turned her right ear toward the door, the better to hear. There came the clink of a bottle being put down upon some hard surface, and then the dull scraping noise of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. Fran caught a glimpse of a small woman, her back to the door, pushing the chair into place. She was wearing a long black cloak, and there was a bald patch at the back of her head. Then she went out of sight again.

“Where is Nagini?” said the cold voice.

“I — I don’t know, My Lord,” said the first voice nervously. “She set out to explore the house, I think...”

“You will milk her before we retire, Wormtail,” said the second voice. “I will need feeding in the night. The journey has tired me greatly.”

Brow furrowed, Fran inclined her good ear still closer to the door, listening very hard. There was a pause, and then the woman called Wormtail spoke again.

“My Lord, may I ask how long we are going to stay here?”

“A week,” said the cold voice. “Perhaps longer. The place is moderately comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over.”

Fran inserted a gnarled finger into her ear and rotated it. Owing, no doubt, to a buildup of earwax, she had heard the word “Quidditch,” which was not a word at all.

“The — the Quidditch World Cup, My Lord?” said Wormtail. (Fran dug her finger still more vigorously into her ear.) “Forgive me, but — I do not understand - why should we wait until the World Cup is over?”

“Because, fool, at this very moment wizards are pouring into the country from all over the world, and every meddler from the Ministry of Magic will be on duty, on the watch for signs of unusual activity, checking and double-checking identities. They will be obsessed with security, lest the Muggles notice anything. So we wait.”

Fran stopped trying to clear out her ear. She had distinctly heard the words “Ministry of Magic,” “wizards,” and “Muggles.” Plainly, each of these expressions meant something secret, and Fran could think of only two sorts of people who would speak in code: spies and criminals. Fran tightened her hold on her walking stick once more, and listened more closely still.

“Your Lordship is still determined, then?” Wormtail said quietly.

“Certainly I am determined, Wormtail.” There was a note of menace in the cold voice now.

A slight pause followed — and the Wormtail spoke, the words tumbling from her in a rush, as though she was forcing herself to say this before she lost her nerve.

“It could be done without Harriet Evans, My Lord.”

Another pause, more protracted, and then —  
“Without Harriet Evans?” breathed the second voice softly. “I see...”

“My Lord, I do not say this out of concern for the girl!” said Wormtail, her voice rising squeakily. “The girl is nothing to me, nothing at all! It is merely that if we were to use another witch or wizard — any wizard — the thing could be done so much more quickly! If you allowed me to leave you for a short while — you know that I can disguise myself most effectively — I could be back here in as little as two days with a suitable person —”

“I could use another wizard,” said the cold voice softly, “that is true...”

“My Lord, it makes sense,” said Wormtail, sounding thoroughly relieved now. “Laying hands on Harriet Evans would be so difficult, she is so well protected —”

“And so you volunteer to go and fetch me a substitute? I wonder... perhaps the task of nursing me has become wearisome for you, Wormtail? Could this suggestion of abandoning the plan be nothing more than an attempt to desert me?”

“My Lord! I — I have no wish to leave you, none at all —”

“Do not lie to me!” hissed the second voice. “I can always tell, Wormtail! You are regretting that you ever returned to me. I revolt you. I see you flinch when you look at me, feel you shudder when you touch me...”

“No! My devotion to Your Lordship —”

“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go. How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?”

“But you seem so much stronger, My Lord —”

“Liar,” breathed the second voice. “I am no stronger, and a few days alone would be enough to rob me of the little health I have regained under your clumsy care. Silence!”

Wormtail, who had been sputtering incoherently, fell silent at once. For a few seconds, Fran could hear nothing but the fire crackling. Then the man spoke once more, in a whisper that was almost a hiss.

“I have my reasons for using the girl, as I have already explained to you, and I will use no other. I have waited thirteen years. A few more months will make no difference. As for the protection surrounding the girl, I believe my plan will be effective. All that is needed is a little courage from you, Wormtail — courage you will find, unless you wish to feel the full extent of Lord Voldermort’s wrath —”

“My Lord, I must speak!” said Wormtail, panic in her voice now. “All through our journey I have gone over the plan in my head — My Lord, Bertha Jorkin’s disappearance will not go unnoticed for long, and if we proceed, if I murder —”

“If?” whispered the second voice. “If? If you follow the plan, Wormtail, the Ministry need never know that anyone else has died. You will do it quietly and without fuss; I only wish that I could do it myself, but in my present condition... Come, Wormtail, one more death and our path to Harriet Evans is clear. I am not asking you to do it alone. By that time, my faithful servant will have rejoined us —”

“I am a faithful servant,” said Wormtail, the merest trace of sullenness in her voice.

“Wormtail, I need somebody with brains, somebody whose loyalty has never wavered, and you, unfortunately, fulfill neither requirement.”

“I found you,” said Wormtail, and there was definitely a sulky edge to her voice now. “I was the one who found you. I brought you Bertha Jorkins.”

“That is true,” said the man, sounding amused. “A stroke of brilliance I would not have thought possible from you, Wormtail — though, if truth be told, you were not aware how useful she would be when you caught her, were you?”

“I — I thought she might be useful, My Lord —”

“Liar,” said the second voice again, the cruel amusement more pronounced than ever. “However, I do not deny that her information was invaluable. Without it, I could never have formed our plan, and for that, you will have your reward, Wormtail. I will allow you to perform an essential task for me, one that many of my followers would give their right hands to perform...”

“R-really, My Lord? What —?” Wormtail sounded terrified again.

“Ah, Wormtail, you don’t want me to spoil the surprise? Your part will come at the very end... but I promise you, you will have the honor of being just as useful as Bertha Jorkins.”

“You... you...” Wormtail’s voice suddenly sounded hoarse, as though her mouth had gone very dry. “You... are going... to kill me too?”

“Wormtail, Wormtail,” said the cold voice silkily, “why would I kill you? I killed Bertha because I had to. She was fit for nothing after my questioning, quite useless. In any case, awkward questions would have been asked if she had gone back to the Ministry with the news that she had met you on her holidays. Witches who are supposed to be dead would do well not to run into Ministry of Magic witches at wayside inns...”

Wormtail muttered something so quietly that Fran could not hear it, but it made the man laugh — an entirely mirthless laugh, cold as his speech.

“We could have modified her memory? But Memory Charms can be broken by a powerful wizard, as I proved when I questioned her. It would be an insult to her memory not to use the information I extracted from her, Wormtail.”

Out in the corridor, Fran suddenly became aware that the hand gripping her walking stick was slippery with sweat. The man with the cold voice had killed a woman. He was talking about it without any kind of remorse — with amusement. He was dangerous — a madman. And he was planning more murders — this girl, Harriet Evans, whoever she was — was in danger — Fran knew what she must do. Now, if ever, was the time to go to the police. She would creep out of the house and head straight for the telephone box in the village... but the cold voice was speaking again, and Fran remained where she was, frozen to the spot, listening with all her might.

“One more murder... my faithful servant at Hogwarts... Harriet Evans is as good as mine, Wormtail. It is decided. There will be no more argument. But quiet... I think I hear Nagini...”

And the man’s voice changed. He started making noises such as Fran had never heard before; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath. Fran thought he must be having some sort of fit or seizure.

And then Fran heard movement behind her in the dark passageway. She turned to look, and found herself paralyzed with fright. Something was slithering toward her along the dark corridor floor, and as it drew nearer to the sliver of firelight, she realized with a thrill of terror that it was a gigantic snake, at least twelve feet long. Horrified, transfixed, Fran stared as its undulating body cut a wide, curving track through the thick dust on the floor, coming closer and closer — What was she to do? The only means of escape was into the room where the two people sat plotting murder, yet if she stayed where she was the snake would surely kill her —

But before she had made his decision, the snake was level with her, and then, incredibly, miraculously, it was passing; it was following the spitting, hissing noises made by the cold voice beyond the door, and in seconds, the tip of its diamond-patterned tail had vanished through the gap.

There was sweat on Fran’s forehead now, and the hand on the walking stick was trembling. Inside the room, the cold voice was continuing to hiss, and Fran was visited by a strange idea, an impossible idea... This man could talk to snakes. Fran didn’t understand what was going on. She wanted more than anything to be back in her bed with her hot-water bottle. The problem was that her legs didn’t seem to want to move. As she stood there shaking and trying to master herself, the cold voice switched abruptly to English again.

“Nagini has interesting news, Wormtail,” it said. 

“In-indeed, My Lord?” said Wormtail.

“Indeed, yes,” said the voice, “According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle standing right outside this room, listening to every word we say.”

Fran didn’t have a chance to hide herself. There were footsteps and then the door of the room was flung wide open.

A short, balding woman with graying hair, a pointed nose, and small, watery eyes stood before Fran, a mixture of fear and alarm in her face.

“Invite her inside, Wormtail. Where are your manners?” The cold voice was coming from the ancient armchair before the fire, but Fran couldn’t see the speaker. The snake, on the other hand, was curled up on the rotting hearth rug, like some horrible travesty of a pet dog. Wormtail beckoned Fran into the room. Though still deeply shaken, Fran took a firmer grip on her walking stick and limped over the threshold.

The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows upon the walls. Fran stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed to be even smaller than his servant, for Fran couldn’t even see the back of his head.

“You heard everything, Muggle?” said the cold voice.

“What’s that you’re calling me?” said Fran defiantly, for now that she was inside the room, now that the time had come for some sort of action, she felt braver; it had always been so in the war.

“I am calling you a Muggle,” said the voice coolly. “It means that you are not a wizard.”

“I don’t know what you mean by wizard,” said Fran, her voice growing steadier. “All I know is I’ve heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You’ve done murder and you’re planning more! And I’ll tell you this too,” she added, on a sudden inspiration, “my husband knows I’m up here, and if I don’t come back —”

“You have no husband,” said the cold voice, very quietly. “Nobody knows you are here. You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle, for he knows... he always knows...”

“Is that right?” said Fran roughly. “Lord, is it? Well, I don’t think much of your manners, My Lord. Turn ‘round and face me like a man, why don’t you?”

“But I am not a man, Muggle,” said the cold voice, barely audible now over the crackling of the flames. “I am much, much more than a man. However... why not? I will face you... Wormtail, come turn my chair around.”

The servant gave a whimper.

“You heard me, Wormtail.”

Slowly, with her face screwed up, as though she would rather have done anything than approach her master and the hearth rug where the snake lay, the small woman walked forward and began to turn the chair. The snake lifted its ugly triangular head and hissed slightly as the legs of the chair snagged on its rug.

And then the chair was facing Fran, and she saw what was sitting in it. Her walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. She opened her mouth and let out a scream. She was screaming so loudly that she never heard the words the thing in the chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Fran Bryce crumpled. She was dead before she hit the floor. Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harriet Evans woke with a start.


	2. The Scar

Harriet lay flat on her back, breathing hard as though she had been running. She had awoken from a vivid dream with her hands pressed over her face. The old scar on her forehead, which was shaped like a bolt of lightning, was burning beneath her fingers as though someone had just pressed a white-hot wire to her skin.

She sat up, one hand still on her scar, the other hand reaching out in the darkness for her glasses, which were on the bedside table. She put them on and her bedroom came into clearer focus, lit by a faint, misty orange light that was filtering through the curtains from the street lamp outside the window.

Harriet ran her fingers over the scar again. It was still painful. She turned on the lamp beside her, scrambled out of bed, crossed the room, opened her wardrobe, and peered into the mirror on the inside of the door. A skinny girl of fourteen looked back at her, her bright green eyes puzzled under her untidy black hair. She examined the lightning-bolt scar of her reflection more closely. It looked normal, but it was still stinging.

Harriet tried to recall what she had been dreaming about before she had awoken. It had seemed so real... There had been two people she knew and one she didn’t... She concentrated hard, frowning, trying to remember... The dim picture of a darkened room came to her... There had been a snake on a hearth rug... a small man called Petunia, nicknamed Wormtail... and a cold, high voice... the voice of Lord Voldemort. Harriet felt as though an ice cube had slipped down into her stomach at the very thought...

She closed her eyes tightly and tried to remember what Voldemort had looked like, but it was impossible... All Harriet knew was that at the moment when Voldemort’s chair had swung around, and she, Harriet, had seen what was sitting in it, she had felt a spasm of horror, which had awoken her... or had that been the pain in her scar?

And who had the old woman been? For there had definitely been an old woman; Harriet had watched her fall to the ground. It was all becoming confused. Harriet put her face into her hands, blocking out her bedroom, trying to hold on to the picture of that dimly lit room, but it was like trying to keep water in her cupped hands; the details were now trickling away as fast as she tried to hold on to them... Voldemort and Wormtail had been talking about someone they had killed, though Harriet could not remember the name... and they had been plotting to kill someone else... her!

Harriet took her face out of her hands, opened her eyes, and stared around her bedroom as though expecting to see something unusual there. As it happened, there was an extraordinary number of unusual things in this room. A large wooden trunk stood open at the foot of her bed, revealing a cauldron, broomstick, black robes, and assorted spellbooks. Rolls of parchment littered that part of her desk that was not taken up by the large, empty cage in which her snowy owl, Hedwig, usually perched. On the floor beside her bed a book lay open; Harriet had been reading it before she fell asleep last night. The pictures in this book were all moving. Women in bright orange robes were zooming in and out of sight on broomsticks, throwing a red ball to one another.

Harriet walked over to the book, picked it up, and watched on of the witches score a spectacular goal by putting the ball through a fifty-foot-high hoop. Then she snapped the book shut. Even Quidditch — in Harriet’s opinion, the best sport in the world — couldn’t distract her at the moment. She placed Flying with the Cannons on her bedside table, crossed to the window, and drew back the curtains to survey the street below.

Privet Drive looked exactly as a respectable suburban street would be expected to look in the early hours of Saturday morning. All the curtains were closed. As far as Harriet could see through the darkness, there wasn’t a living creature in sight, not even a cat.

And yet... and yet... Harriet went restlessly back to the bed and sat down on it, running a finger over her scar again. It wasn’t the pain that bothered her; Harriet was no stranger to pain and injury. She had lost all the bones from her right arm once and had them painfully regrown in a night. The same arm had been pierced by a venomous foot-long fang not long afterward. Only last year Harriet had fallen fifty feet from an airborn broomstick. She was used to bizarre accidents and injuries; they were unavoidable if you attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had a knack for attracting a lot of trouble.

No, the thing that was bothering Harriet was the last time her scar had hurt her, it had been because Voldemort had been close by... But Voldemort couldn’t be here, now... The idea of Voldemort lurking in Privet Drive was absurd, impossible...

Harriet listened closely to the silence around her. Was she half expecting to hear the creak of a stair or the swish of a cloak? And then she jumped slightly as she heard her cousin Diana give a tremendous grunting snore from the next room.

Harriet shook herself mentally; she was being stupid. There was no one in the house with her except Aunt Verona, Uncle Peter, and Diana, and they were plainly still asleep, their dreams untroubled and painless.

Asleep was the way Harriet liked the Evans’ best; it wasn’t as though they were ever any help to her awake. Aunt Verona, Uncle Peter, and Diana were Harriet’s only living relatives. They were Muggles who hated and despised magic in any form, which meant that Harriet was about as welcome in their house as dry rot. They had explained away Harriet’s long absences at Hogwarts over the last three years by telling everyone that she went to St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Girls. They knew perfectly well that, as an underage wizard, Harriet wasn’t allowed to use magic outside Hogwarts, but they were still apt to blame her for anything that went wrong about the house. Harriet had never been able to confide in them or tell them anything about her life in the wizarding world. The very idea of going to them when they awoke, and telling them about her scar hurting her, and about her worries about Voldemort, was laughable.

And yet it was because of Voldemort that Harriet had come to live with the Evans’ in the first place. If it hadn’t been for Voldemort, Harriet would not have had the lightning scar on her forehead. If it hadn’t been for Voldemort, Harriet would still have had parents...

Harriet had been a year old the night that Voldemort — the most powerful Dark wizard for a century, a wizard who had been gaining power steadily for eleven years — arrived at her house and killed her father and mother. Voldemort had then turned his wand on Harriet ; he had performed the curse that had disposed of many full-grown witches and wizards in his steady rise to power — and, incredibly, it had not worked. Instead of killing the small girl, the curse had rebounded upon Voldemort. Harriet had survived with nothing but a lightning-shaped cut on her forehead, and Voldemort had been reduced to something barely alive. His powers gone, his life almost extinguished, Voldemort had fled; the terror in which the secret community of witches and wizards had lived for so long had lifted, Voldemort’s followers had disbanded, and Harriet Evans had become famous.

It had been enough of a shock for Harriet to discover, on her eleventh birthday, that she was a witch; it had been even more disconcerting to find out that everyone in the hidden wizarding world knew her name. Harriet had arrived at Hogwarts to find that heads turned and whispers followed her wherever she went. But she was used to it now: at the end of this summer, she would be starting her fourth year at Hogwarts, and Harriet was already counting the days until she would be back at the castle again.

But there was still a fortnight to go before she went back to school. She looked hopelessly around his room again, and her eye paused on the birthday cards her two best friends had sent her at the end of July. What would they say if Harriet wrote to them and told them about her scar hurting?

At once, Hermes Granger’s voice seemed to fill her head, shrill and panicky.

“Your scar hurt? Harriet, that’s really serious... Write to Professor Dumbledore! And I’ll go and check Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions... Maybe there’s something in there about curse scars...”

Yes, that would be Hermes’ advice: Go straight to the headmaster of Hogwarts, and in the meantime, consult a book. Harriet stared out of the window at the inky blue-black sky. She doubted very much whether a book could help her now. As far as she knew, she was the only living person to have survived a curse like Voldemort’s; it was highly unlikely, therefore, that she would find her symptoms listed in Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions. As for informing the headmistress, Harriet had no idea where Dumbledore went during the summer holidays. She amused herself for a moment, picturing Dumbledore, with her long silver hair, full length witch’s robes, and pointed hat, stretched out on a beach somewhere, rubbing suntan lotion onto her long crooked nose. Wherever Dumbledore was, though, Harriet was sure that Hedwig would be able to find her; Harriet’s owl had never yet failed to deliver a letter to anyone, even without an address. But what would she write?

‘Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Sorry to bother you, but my scar hurt this morning.

Yours sincerely,  
Harriet Evans.’

Even inside her head the words sounded stupid.

And so she tried to imagine her other best friend, Ronnie Prewett’s, reaction, and in a moment, Ronnie’s red hair and long-nosed, freckled face seemed to swim before Harriet, wearing a bemused expression.

“Your scar hurt? But... but You-Know-Who can’t be near you now, can he? I mean... you’d know, wouldn’t you? He’d be trying to do you in again, wouldn’t be? I dunno, Harriet , maybe curse scars always twinge a bit... I’ll ask Mum...”

Mrs. Prewett was a fully qualified witch who worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, but she didn’t have any particular expertise in the matter of curses, as far as Harriet knew. In any case, Harriet didn’t like the idea of the whole Prewett family knowing that she, Harriet, was getting jumpy about a few moments’ pain. Mr. Prewett would fuss worse than Hermes, and Frankie and Georgina, Ronnie’s sixteen-year-old twin sisters, might think Harriet was losing her nerve. The Prewetts were Harriet’s favorite family in the world; she was hoping that they might invite her to stay any time now (Ronnie had mentioned something about the Quidditch World Cup), and she somehow didn’t want her visit punctuated with anxious inquiries about her scar.

Harriet kneaded her forehead with her knuckles. What she really wanted (and it felt almost shameful to admit it to herself) was someone like - someone like a parent: an adult wizard whose advice she could ask without feeling stupid, someone who cared about her, who had had experience with Dark Magic...

And then the solution came to her. It was so simple, and so obvious, that she couldn’t believe it had taken so long - Siri.

Harriet leapt up from the bed, hurried across the room, and sat down at her desk; she pulled a piece of parchment toward her, loaded her eagle-feather quill with ink, wrote:

‘Dear Sirius,’

then paused, wondering how best to phrase her problem, still marveling at the fact that she hadn’t thought of Siri straight away. But then, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising - after all, she had only found out that Siri was her godmother two months ago.

There was a simple reason for Siri’s complete absence from Harriet’s life until then - Siri had been in Azkaban, the terrifying wizard jail guarded by creatures called dementors, sightless, soul-sucking fiends who had come to search for Siri at Hogwarts when she had escaped. Yet Siri had been innocent - the murders for which she had been convicted had been committed by Wormtail, Voldemort’s supporter, whom nearly everybody now believed dead. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes knew otherwise, however; they had come face-to-face with Wormtail only the previous year, though only Professor Dumbledore had believed their story.

For one glorious hour, Harriet had believed that she was leaving the Evans’ at last, because Siri had offered her a home once her name had been cleared. But the chance had been snatched away from her - Wormtail had escaped before they could take her to the Ministry of Magic, and Siri had had to flee for her life. Harriet had helped her escape on the back of a hippogriff called Buckbeak, and since then, Siri had been on the run. The home Harriet might have had if Wormtail had not escaped had been haunting her all summer. It had been doubly hard to return to the Evans’ knowing that she had so nearly escaped them forever.

Nevertheless, Siri had been of some help to Harriet, even if she couldn’t be with her. It was due to Siri that Harriet now had all her school things in her bedroom with her. The Evans’ had never allowed this before; their general wish of keeping Harriet as miserable as possible, coupled with their fear of her powers, had led them to lock her school trunk in the cupboard under the stairs every summer prior to this. But their attitude had changed since they had found out that Harriet had a dangerous murderer for a godmother - for Harriet had conveniently forgotten to tell them that Siri was innocent.

Harriet had received two letters from Siri since she had been back at Privet Drive. Both had been delivered, not by owls (as was usual with wizards), but by large, brightly colored tropical birds. Hedwig had not approved of these flashy intruders; she had been most reluctant to allow them to drink from her water tray before flying off again. Harriet, on the other hand, had liked them; they put him in mind of palm trees and white sand, and she hoped that, wherever Siri was (Siri never said, in case the letters were intercepted), she was enjoying herself. Somehow, Harriet found it hard to imaging dementors surviving for long in bright sunlight, perhaps that was why Siri had gone South. Siri’s letters, which were now hidden beneath the highly useful loose floorboards under Harriet’s bed, sounded cheerful, and in both of them she had reminded Harriet to call on her if ever Harriet needed to. Well, she needed to right now, all right...

Harriet’s lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the cold gray light that precedes sunrise slowly crept into the room. Finally, when the sun had risen, when her bedroom walls had turned gold, and when sounds of movement could be heard from Aunt Verona and Uncle Peter’s room, Harriet cleared her desk of crumpled pieces of parchment and reread her finished letter.

‘Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. That bird was enormous; it could hardly get through my window. Things are the same as usual here. Diana’s diet isn’t going too well. My uncle found her smuggling doughnuts into her room yesterday. They told her they’d have to cut her pocket money if she keeps doing it, so she got really angry and chucked her PlayStation out of the window. That’s a sort of computer thing you can play games on. Bit stupid really, now she hasn’t even got Mega-Mutilation Part Three to take her mind off things.

I’m okay, mainly because the Evans’ are terrified you might turn up and turn them all into bats if I ask you to.

A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don’t reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward?

I’ll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she’s off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for me.

Harriet’

Yes, thought Harriet, that looked all right. There was no point putting in the dream; she didn’t want it to look as though she was too worried. She folded up the parchment and laid it aside on her desk, ready for when Hedwig returned. Then she got to her feet, stretched, and opened her wardrobe once more. Without glancing at her reflection she started to get dressed before going down to breakfast.


	3. The Invitation

By the time Harriet arrived in the kitchen, the three Evans’ were already seated around the table. None of them looked up as she entered or sat down. Aunt Verona’s large red face was hidden behind the morning’s Daily Mail, and Uncle Peter was cutting a grapefruit into quarters, his lips pursed over his horselike teeth.

Diana looked furious and sulky, and somehow seemed to be taking up even more space than usual. This was saying something, as she always took up an entire side of the square table by herself. When Uncle Peter put a quarter of unsweetened grapefruit onto Diana’s plate with a tremulous “There you are, Diddy darling,” Diana glowered at him. Her life had taken a most unpleasant turn since she had come home for the summer with her end-of-year report.

Aunt Verona and Uncle Peter had managed to find excuses for her bad marks as usual: Uncle Peter always insisted that Diana was a very gifted girl whose teachers didn’t understand her, while Aunt Verona maintained that “she didn’t want some swotty little nancy girl for a daughter anyway.” They also skated over the accusations of bullying in the report - “She’s a boisterous little girl, but she wouldn’t hurt a fly!” Uncle Peter had said tearfully.

However, at the bottom of the report there were a few well-chosen comments from the school nurse that not even Aunt Verona and Uncle Peter could explain away. No matter how much Uncle Peter wailed that Diana was big-boned, and that her poundage was really puppy fat, and that she was a growing girl who needed plenty of food, the fact remained that the school outfitters didn’t stock knickerbockers big enough for her anymore. The school nurse had seen what Uncle Peter’s eyes - so sharp when it came to spotting fingerprints on his gleaming walls, and in observing the comings and goings of the neighbors - simply refused to see: that far from needing extra nourishment, Diana had reached roughly the size and weight of a young killer whale.

So - after many tantrums, after arguments that shook Harriet’s bedroom floor, and many tears from Uncle Peter - the new regime had begun. The diet sheet that had been sent by the Smeltings school nurse had been taped to the fridge, which had been emptied of all Diana’s favorite things - fizzy drinks and cakes, chocolate bars and burgers and filled instead with fruit and vegetables and the sorts of things that Aunt Verona called “rabbit food.” To make Diana feel better about it all, Uncle Peter had insisted that the whole family follow the diet too. He now passed a grapefruit quarter to Harriet. She noticed that it was a lot smaller than Diana’s. Uncle Peter seemed to feel that the best way to keep up Diana’s morale was to make sure that she did, at least, get more to eat than Harriet.

But Uncle Peter didn’t know what was hidden under the loose floorboard upstairs. He had no idea that Harriet was not following the diet at all. The moment she had got wind of the fact that she was expected to survive the summer on carrot sticks, Harriet had sent Hedwig to her friends with pleas for help, and they had risen to the occasion magnificently. Hedwig had returned from Hermes’ house with a large box stuffed full of sugar-free snacks. (Hermes’ parents were dentists.) Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had obliged with a sack full of her own homemade rock cakes. (Harriet hadn’t touched these; she had had too much experience of Hagrid’s cooking.) Mr. Prewett, however, had sent the family owl, Errol, with an enormous fruitcake and assorted meat pies. Poor Errol, who was elderly and feeble, had needed a full five days to recover from the journey. And then on Harriet’s birthday (which the Evans’ had completely ignored) she had received four superb birthday cakes, one each from Ronnie, Hermes, Hagrid, and Siri. Harriet still had two of them left, and so, looking forward to a real breakfast when she got back upstairs, she ate her grapefruit without complaint.

Aunt Verona laid aside her paper with a deep sniff of disapproval and looked down at her own grapefruit quarter.

“Is this it?” she said grumpily to Uncle Peter.

Uncle Peter gave her a severe look, and then nodded pointedly at Diana, who had already finished her own grapefruit quarter and was eyeing Harriet’s with a very sour look in her piggy little eyes.

Aunt Verona gave a great sigh, which ruffled her large, bushy hair, and picked up her spoon.

The doorbell rang. Aunt Verona heaved herself out of her chair and set off down the hall. Quick as a flash, while her father was occupied with the kettle, Diana stole the rest of Aunt Verona’s grapefruit.

Harriet heard talking at the door, and someone laughing, and Aunt Verona answering curtly. Then the front door closed, and the sound of ripping paper came from the hall.

Uncle Peter set the teapot down on the table and looked curiously around to see where Aunt Verona had got to. He didn’t have to wait long to find out; after about a minute, she was back. She looked livid.

“You,” she barked at Harriet. “In the living room. Now.”

Bewildered, wondering what on earth she was supposed to have done this time, Harriet got up and followed Aunt Verona out of the kitchen and into the next room. Aunt Verona closed the door sharply behind both of them.

“So,” she said, marching over to the fireplace and turning to face Harriet as though she were about to pronounce her under arrest. “So.”

Harriet would have dearly loved to have said, “So what?” but she didn’t feel that Aunt Verona’s temper should be tested this early in the morning, especially when it was already under severe strain from lack of food. She therefore settled for looking politely puzzled.

“This just arrived,” said Aunt Verona. She brandished a piece of purple writing paper at Harriet. “A letter. About you.”

Harriet’s confusion increased. Who would be writing to Aunt Verona about her? Who did she know who sent letters by the postman?

Aunt Verona glared at Harriet, then looked down at the letter and began to read aloud:

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. Evans,

We have never been introduced, but I am sure you have heard a great deal from Harriet about my daughter Ronnie.

As Harriet might have told you, the final of the Quidditch World Cup takes place this Monday night, and my wife, Arlene, has just managed to get prime tickets through her connections at the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I do hope you will allow us to take Harriet to the match, as this really is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity; Britain hasn’t hosted the cup for thirty years, and tickets are extremely hard to come by. We would of course be glad to have Harriet stay for the remainder of the summer holidays, and to see her safely onto the train back to school.

It would be best for Harriet to send us your answer as quickly as possible in the normal way, because the Muggle postman has never delivered to our house, and I am not sure he even knows where it is.

Hoping to see Harriet soon,

Yours sincerely,  
Michael Prewett

P.S. I do hope we’ve put enough stamps on.”

Aunt Verona finished reading, put her hand back into her breast pocket, and drew out something else.

“Look at this,” she growled.

She held up the envelope in which Mr. Prewett’s letter had come, and Harriet had to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps except for a square inch on the front, into which Mr. Prewett had squeezed the Evans’ address in minute writing.

“He did put enough stamps on, then,” said Harriet, trying to sound as though Mr. Prewett’s was a mistake anyone could make. Her aunt’s eyes flashed.

“The postman noticed,” she said through gritted teeth. “Very interested to know where this letter came from, he was. That’s why he rang the doorbell. Seemed to think it was funny.”

Harriet didn’t say anything. Other people might not understand why Aunt Verona was making a fuss about too many stamps, but Harriet had lived with the Evans’ too long not to know how touchy they were about anything even slightly out of the ordinary. Their worst fear was that someone would find out that they were connected (however distantly) with people like Mr. Prewett.

Aunt Verona was still glaring at Harriet, who tried to keep her expression neutral. If she didn’t do or say anything stupid, she might just be in for the treat of a lifetime. She waited for Aunt Verona to say something, but she merely continued to glare.

Harriet decided to break the silence. “So - can I go then?” she asked.

A slight spasm crossed Aunt Verona’s large purple face. Harriet thought she knew what was going on behind the mustache: a furious battle as two of Aunt Verona’s most fundamental instincts came into conflict. Allowing Harriet to go would make Harriet happy, something Aunt Verona had struggled against for thirteen years. On the other hand, allowing Harriet to disappear to the Prewett’s for the rest of the summer would get rid of her two weeks earlier than anyone could have hoped, and Aunt Verona hated having Harriet in the house. To give herself thinking time, it seemed, she looked down at Mr. Prewett’s letter again.

“Who is this man?” she said, staring at the signature with distaste.

“You’ve seen him,” said Harriet. “He’s my friend Ronnie’s father, he was meeting her off the Hog - off the school train at the end of last term.”

She had almost said “Hogwarts Express,” and that was a sure way to get her aunt’s temper up. Nobody ever mentioned the name of Harriet’s school aloud in the Evans household.

Aunt Verona screwed up her enormous face as though trying to remember something very unpleasant.

“Dumpy sort of man?” she growled finally. “Load of children with red hair?”

Harriet frowned. She thought it was a bit rich of Aunt Verona to call anyone “dumpy,” when her own daughter, Diana, had finally achieved what she’d been threatening to do since the age of three, and become wider than she was tall. Aunt Verona was perusing the letter again.

“Quidditch,” she muttered under her breath. “Quidditch - what is this rubbish?” Harriet felt a second stab of annoyance.

“It’s a sport,” she said shortly. “Played on broom- “

“All right, all right!” said Aunt Verona loudly. Harriet saw, with some satisfaction, that her aunt looked vaguely panicky. Apparently her nerves couldn’t stand the sound of the word “broomsticks” in her living room. She took refuge in perusing the letter again. Harriet saw her lips form the words “send us your answer... in the normal way.” She scowled.

“What does she mean, ‘the normal way’?” she spat.

“Normal for us,” said Harriet, and before her aunt could stop her, she added, “you know, owl post. That’s what’s normal for wizards.”

Aunt Verona looked as outraged as if Harriet had just uttered a disgusting swearword. Shaking with anger, she shot a nervous look through the window, as though expecting to see some of the neighbors with their ears pressed against the glass.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to mention that unnaturalness under my roof?” she hissed, her face now a rich plum color. “You stand there, in the clothes Peter and I have put on your ungrateful back -”

“Only after Diana finished with them,” said Harriet coldly, and indeed, she was dressed in a sweatshirt so large for her that she had had to roll back the sleeves five times so as to be able to use her hands, and which fell past the knees of her extremely baggy jeans.

“I will not be spoken to like that!” said Aunt Verona, trembling with rage.

But Harriet wasn’t going to stand for this. Gone were the days when she had been forced to take every single one of the Evans’ stupid rules. She wasn’t following Diana’s diet, and she wasn’t going to let Aunt Verona stop her from going to the Quidditch World Cup, not if she could help it. Harriet took a deep, steadying breath and then said, “Okay, I can’t see the World Cup. Can I go now, then? Only I’ve got a letter to Siri I want to finish. You know - my godmother.”

She had done it, she had said the magic words. Now she watched the purple recede blotchily from Aunt Verona’s face, making it look like badly mixed black currant ice cream.

“You’re - you’re writing to her, are you?” said Aunt Verona, in a would-be calm voice - but Harriet had seen the pupils of her tiny eyes contract with sudden fear.

“Well - yeah,” said Harriet, casually. “It’s been a while since she heard from me, and, you know, if she doesn’t she might start thinking something’s wrong.”

She stopped there to enjoy the effect of these words. She could almost see the cogs working under Aunt Verona’s thick, dark, neatly parted hair. If she tried to stop Harriet writing to Siri, Siri would think Harriet was being mistreated. If she told Harriet she couldn’t go to the Quidditch World Cup, Harriet would write and tell Siri, who would know Harriet was being mistreated. There was only one thing for Aunt Verona’s to do. Harriet could see the conclusion forming in her aunt’s mind as though the great mustached face were transparent. Harriet tried not to smile, to keep her own face as blank as possible. And then –

“Well, all right then. You can go to this ruddy... this stupid... this World Cup thing. You write and tell these - these Prewetts they’re to pick you up, mind. I haven’t got time to go dropping you off all over the country. And you can spend the rest of the summer there. And you can tell your - your godmother... tell her... tell her you’re going.”

“Okay then,” said Harriet brightly.

She turned and walked toward the living room door, fighting the urge to jump into the air and whoop. She was going... she was going to the Prewett’s, she was going to watch the Quidditch World Cup! Outside in the hall she nearly ran into Diana, who had been lurking behind the door, clearly hoping to overhear Harriet being told off. She looked shocked to see the broad grin on Harriet’s face.

“That was an excellent breakfast, wasn’t it?” said Harriet. “I feel really full, don’t you?”

Laughing at the astonished look on Diana’s face, Harriet took the stairs three at a time, and hurled herself back into her bedroom.

The first thing she saw was that Hedwig was back. She was sitting in her cage, staring at Harriet with her enormous amber eyes, and clicking her beak in the way that meant she was annoyed about something. Exactly what was annoying her became apparent almost at once.

“OUCH!” said Harriet as what appeared to be a small, gray, feathery tennis ball collided with the side of her head. Harriet massaged the spot furiously, looking up to see what had hit her, and saw a minute owl, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand, whizzing excitedly around the room like a loose firework. Harriet then realized that the owl had dropped a letter at her feet. Harriet bent down, recognized Ronnie’s handwriting, then tore open the envelope. Inside was a hastily scribbled note.

‘Harriet - MUM GOT THE TICKETS - Ireland versus Bulgaria, Monday night. Dad’s writing to the Muggles to ask you to stay. They might already have the letter, I don’t know how fast Muggle post is. Thought I’d send this with Pig anyway.’

Harriet stared at the word “Pig,” then looked up at the tiny owl now zooming around the light fixture on the ceiling. She had never seen anything that looked less like a pig. Maybe she couldn’t read Ronnie’s writing. She went back to the letter:

‘We’re coming for you whether the Muggles like it or not, you can’t miss the World Cup, only Mum and Dad reckon it’s better if we pretend to ask their permission first. If they say yes, send Pig back with your answer pronto, and we’ll come and get you at five o’clock on Sunday. If they say no, send Pig back pronto and we’ll come and get you at five o’clock on Sunday anyway.

Hermes’ arriving this afternoon. Penelope’s started work - the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Don’t mention anything about Abroad while you’re here unless you want the pants bored off you.

See you soon –  
Ronnie’

“Calm down!” Harriet said as the small owl flew low over her head, twittering madly with what Harriet could only assume was pride at having delivered the letter to the right person. “Come here, I need you to take my answer back!”

The owl fluttered down on top of Hedwig’s cage. Hedwig looked coldly up at it, as though daring it to try and come any closer.

Harriet seized her eagle-feather quill once more, grabbed a fresh piece of parchment, and wrote: 

‘Ronnie, it’s all okay, the Muggles say I can come. See you five o’clock tomorrow. Can’t wait. Harriet’

She folded this note up very small, and with immense difficulty, tied it to the tiny owl’s leg as it hopped on the spot with excitement. The moment the note was secure, the owl was off again; it zoomed out of the window and out of sight.

Harriet turned to Hedwig.

“Feeling up to a long journey?” she asked her.

Hedwig hooted in a dignified sort of a way.

“Can you take this to Siri for me?” she said, picking up her letter. “Hang on... I just want to finish it.”

She unfolded the parchment and hastily added a postscript.

‘If you want to contact me, I’ll be at my friend Ronnie Prewett’s for the rest of the summer. Her mum’s got us tickets for the Quidditch World Cup!’

The letter finished, she tied it to Hedwig’s leg; she kept unusually still, as though determined to show her how a real post owl should behave.

“I’ll be at Ronnie’s when you get back, all right?” Harriet told her.

She nipped her finger affectionately, then, with a soft swooshing noise, spread her enormous wings and soared out of the open window. Harriet watched her out of sight, then crawled under her bed, wrenched up the loose floorboard, and pulled out a large chunk of birthday cake. She sat there on the floor eating it, savoring the happiness that was flooding through her. She had cake, and Diana had nothing but grapefruit; it was a bright summer’s day, she would be leaving Privet Drive tomorrow, her scar felt perfectly normal again, and she was going to watch the Quidditch World Cup. It was hard, just now, to feel worried about anything - even Lord Voldemort.


	4. Back to the Burrow

By twelve o’clock the next day, Harriet’s school trunk was packed with her school things and all her most prized possessions - the Invisibility Cloak she had inherited from her mother, the broomstick she had gotten from Siri, the enchanted map of Hogwarts she had been given by Frankie and Georgina Prewett last year. She had emptied her hiding place under the loose floorboard of all food, double-checked every nook and cranny of her bedroom for forgotten spellbooks or quills, and taken down the chart on the wall counting down the days to September the first, on which she liked to cross off the days remaining until her return to Hogwarts.

The atmosphere inside number four, Privet Drive was extremely tense. The imminent arrival at their house of an assortment of wizards was making the Evans’ uptight and irritable. Aunt Verona had looked downright alarmed when Harriet informed her that the Prewetts would be arriving at five o’clock the very next day.

“I hope you told them to dress properly, these people,” she snarled at once. “I’ve seen the sort of stuff your lot wear. They’d better have the decency to put on normal clothes, that’s all.”

Harriet felt a slight sense of foreboding. She had rarely seen Mr. or Mrs Prewett wearing anything that the Evans’ would call “normal.” Their children might don Muggle clothing during the holidays, but Mr. and Mrs Prewett usually wore long robes in varying states of shabbiness. Harriet wasn’t bothered about what the neighbors would think, but she was anxious about how rude the Evans’ might be to the Prewetts if they turned up looking like their worst idea of wizards.

Aunt Verona had put on her best suit. To some people, this might have looked like a gesture of welcome, but Harriet knew it was because Aunt Verona wanted to look impressive and intimidating. Diana, on the other hand, looked somehow diminished. This was not because the diet was at last taking effect, but due to fright. Diana had emerged from her last encounter with a fully grown witch with a curly pig’s tail poking out of the seat of her trousers, and Uncle Peter and Aunt Verona had had to pay for its removal at a private hospital in London. It wasn’t altogether surprising, therefore, that Diana kept running her hand nervously over her backside, and walking sideways from room to room, so as not to present the same target to the enemy.

Lunch was an almost silent meal. Diana didn’t even protest at the food (cottage cheese and grated celery). Uncle Peter wasn’t eating anything at all. His arms were folded, his lips were pursed, and he seemed to be chewing his tongue, as though biting back the furious diatribe he longed to throw at Harriet.

“They’ll be driving, of course?” Aunt Verona barked across the table. 

“Er,” said Harriet.

She hadn’t thought of that. How were the Prewetts going to pick her up? They didn’t have a car anymore; the old Ford Anglia they had once owned was currently running wild in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. But Mrs Prewett had borrowed a Ministry of Magic car last year; possibly she would do the same today?

“I think so,” said Harriet.

Aunt Verona snorted into her napkin. Normally, Aunt Verona would have asked what car Mrs. Prewett drove; she tended to judge other women by how big and expensive their cars were. But Harriet doubted whether Aunt Verona would have taken to Mrs. Prewett even if she drove a Ferrari.

Harriet spent most of the afternoon in her bedroom; she couldn’t stand watching Uncle Peter peer out through the net curtains every few seconds, as though there had been a warning about an escaped rhinoceros. Finally, at a quarter to five, Harriet went back downstairs and into the living room.

Uncle Peter was compulsively straightening cushions. Aunt Verona was pretending to read the paper, but her tiny eyes were not moving, and Harriet was sure she was really listening with all her might for the sound of an approaching car. Diana was crammed into an armchair, her porky hands beneath her, clamped firmly around her bottom. Harriet couldn’t take the tension; she left the room and went and sat on the stairs in the hall, her eyes on her watch and her heart pumping fast from excitement and nerves.

But five o’clock came and then went. Aunt Verona, perspiring slightly in her suit, opened the front door, peered up and down the street, then withdrew her head quickly.

“They’re late!” she snarled at Harriet.

“I know,” said Harriet. “Maybe - er - the traffic’s bad, or something.”

Ten past five... then a quarter past five... Harriet was starting to feel anxious herself now. At half past, she heard Aunt Verona and Uncle Peter conversing in terse mutters in the living room.

“No consideration at all.”

“We might’ve had an engagement.”

“Maybe they think they’ll get invited to dinner if they’re late.”

“Well, they most certainly won’t be,” said Aunt Verona, and Harriet heard her stand up and start pacing the living room. “They’ll take the girl and go, there’ll be no hanging around. That’s if they’re coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I daresay their kind don’t set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive some tin-pot car that’s broken d- AAAAAAARRRRRGH!”

Harriet jumped up. From the other side of the living room door came the sounds of the three Evans’ scrambling, panic-stricken, across the room. Next moment Diana came flying into the hall, looking terrified.

“What happened?” said Harriet. “What’s the matter?”

But Diana didn’t seem able to speak. Hands still clamped over her buttocks, she waddled as fast as she could into the kitchen. Harriet hurried into the living room. Loud bangings and scrapings were coming from behind the Evans’ boarded-up fireplace, which had a fake coal fire plugged in front of it.

“What is it?” gasped Uncle Peter, who had backed into the wall and was staring, terrified, toward the fire. “What is it, Verona?”

But they were left in doubt barely a second longer. Voices could be heard from inside the blocked fireplace.

“Ouch! Frankie, no - go back, go back, there’s been some kind of mistake – tell Georgina not to - OUCH! Georgina, no, there’s no room, go back quickly and tell Ronnie-”

“Maybe Harriet can hear us, Mum - maybe she’ll be able to let us out-”

There was a loud hammering of fists on the boards behind the electric fire.

“Harriet? Harriet, can you hear us?”

The Evans’ rounded on Harriet like a pair of angry wolverines.

“What is this?” growled Aunt Verona. “What’s going on?”

“They - they’ve tried to get here by Floo powder,” said Harriet, fighting a mad desire to laugh. “They can travel by fire - only you’ve blocked the fireplace – hang on -”

She approached the fireplace and called through the boards.

“Mrs. Prewett? Can you hear me?”

The hammering stopped. Somebody inside the chimney piece said, “Shh!”

“Mrs. Prewett, it’s Harriet... the fireplace has been blocked up. You won’t be able to get through there.”

“Damn!” said Mrs. Prewett’s voice. “What on earth did they want to block up the fireplace for?” 

“They’ve got an electric fire,” Harriet explained.

“Really?” said Mrs. Prewett’s voice excitedly. “Eclectic, you say? With a plug? Gracious, I must see that... Let’s think... ouch, Ronnie!”

Ronnie’s voice now joined the others’.

“What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?”

“Oh no, Ronnie,” came Frankie’s voice, very sarcastically. “No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up.”

“Yeah, we’re having the time of our lives here,” said Georgina, whose voice sounded muffled, as though she was squashed against the wall.

“Girls, girls...” said Mrs. Prewett vaguely. “I’m trying to think what to do... Yes... only way... Stand back, Harriet.”

Harriet retreated to the sofa. Aunt Verona, however, moved forward.

“Wait a moment!” she bellowed at the fire. “What exactly are you going to -” BANG.

The electric fire shot across the room as the boarded-up fireplace burst outward, expelling Mrs. Prewett, Frankie, Georgina , and Ronnie in a cloud of rubble and loose chippings. Uncle Peter shrieked and fell backward over the coffee table; Aunt Verona caught him before he hit the floor, and gaped, speechless, at the Prewetts, all of whom had bright red hair, including Frankie and Georgina, who were identical to the last freckle.

“That’s better,” panted Mrs. Prewett, brushing dust from her long green robes and straightening her glasses. “Ah - you must be Harriet’s aunt and uncle!”

Tall and thin, she moved toward Aunt Verona, her hand outstretched, but Aunt Verona backed away several paces, dragging Uncle Peter. Words utterly failed Aunt Verona. Her best suit was covered in white dust, which had settled in her hair and mustache and made her look as though she had just aged thirty years.

“Er - yes - sorry about that,” said Mrs. Prewett, lowering her hand and looking over her shoulder at the blasted fireplace. “It’s all my fault. It just didn’t occur to me that we wouldn’t be able to get out at the other end. I had your fireplace connected to the Floo Network, you see - just for an afternoon, you know, so we could get Harriet. Muggle fireplaces aren’t supposed to be connected, strictly speaking - but I’ve got a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel and she fixed it for me. I can put it right in a jiffy, though, don’t worry. I’ll light a fire to send the girls back, and then I can repair your fireplace before I Disapparate.”

Harriet was ready to bet that the Evans’ hadn’t understood a single word of this. They were still gaping at Mrs. Prewett, thunderstruck. Uncle Peter staggered upright again and hid behind Aunt Verona.

“Hello, Harriet!” said Mrs. Prewett brightly. “Got your trunk ready?”

“It’s upstairs,” said Harriet, grinning back.

“We’ll get it,” said Frankie at once. Winking at Harriet, she and Georgina left the room.

They knew where Harriet’s bedroom was, having once rescued her from it in the dead of night. Harriet suspected that Frankie and Georgina were hoping for a glimpse of Diana; they had heard a lot about her from Harriet.

“Well,” said Mrs. Prewett, swinging her arms slightly, while she tried to find words to break the very nasty silence. “Very - erm - very nice place you’ve got here.” 

As the usually spotless living room was now covered in dust and bits of brick, this remark didn’t go down too well with the Evans’. Aunt Verona’s face purpled once more, and Uncle Peter started chewing his tongue again. However, they seemed too scared to actually say anything.

Mrs. Prewett was looking around. She loved everything to do with Muggles. Harriet could see her itching to go and examine the television and the video recorder.

“They run off eckeltricity, do they?” she said knowledgeably. “Ah yes, I can see the plugs. I collect plugs,” she added to Aunt Verona. “And batteries. Got a very large collection of batteries. My husband thinks I’m mad, but there you are.”

Aunt Verona clearly thought Mrs. Prewett was mad too. She moved ever so slightly to the right, screening Uncle Peter from view, as though she thought Mrs. Prewett might suddenly run at them and attack. Diana suddenly reappeared in the room. Harriet could hear the clunk of her trunk on the stairs, and knew that the sounds had scared Diana out of the kitchen. Diana edged along the wall, gazing at Mrs. Prewett with terrified eyes, and attempted to conceal herself behind her mother and father. Unfortunately, Aunt Verona’s bulk, while sufficient to hide bony Uncle Peter, was nowhere near enough to conceal Diana.

“Ah, this is your cousin, is it, Harriet?” said Mrs. Prewett, taking another brave stab at making conversation.

“Yep,” said Harriet, “that’s Diana.”

She and Ronnie exchanged glances and then quickly looked away from each other; the temptation to burst out laughing was almost overwhelming. Diana was still clutching her bottom as though afraid it might fall off. Mrs. Prewett, however, seemed genuinely concerned at Diana’s peculiar behavior. Indeed, from the tone of her voice when she next spoke, Harriet was quite sure that Mrs. Prewett thought Diana was quite as mad as the Evans’ thought she was, except that Mrs. Prewett felt sympathy rather than fear.

“Having a good holiday, Diana?” she said kindly.

Diana whimpered. Harriet saw her hands tighten still harder over her massive backside.

Frankie and Georgina came back into the room carrying Harriet’s school trunk. They glanced around as they entered and spotted Diana. Their faces cracked into identical evil grins.

“Ah, right,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Better get cracking then.”

She pushed up the sleeves of her robes and took out her wand. Harriet saw the Evans’ draw back against the wall as one.

“Incendio!” said Mrs. Prewett, pointing her wand at the hole in the wall behind her.

Flames rose at once in the fireplace, crackling merrily as though they had been burning for hours. Mrs. Prewett took a small drawstring bag from her pocket, untied it, took a pinch of the powder inside, and threw it onto the flames, which turned emerald green and roared higher than ever.

“Off you go then, Frankie,” said Mrs. Prewett.

“Coming,” said Frankie. “Oh no - hang on -”

A bag of sweets had spilled out of Frankie’s pocket and the contents were now rolling in every direction - big, fat toffees in brightly colored wrappers. Frankie scrambled around, cramming them back into her pocket, then gave the Evans’ a cheery wave, stepped forward, and walked right into the fire, saying “the Burrow!” Uncle Peter gave a little shuddering gasp. There was a whooshing sound, and Frankie vanished.

“Right then, Georgina,” said Mrs. Prewett, “you and the trunk.”

Harriet helped Georgina carry the trunk forward into the flames and turn it onto its end so that she could hold it better. Then, with a second whoosh, Georgina had cried “the Burrow!” and vanished too.

“Ronnie, you next,” said Mrs. Prewett.

“See you,” said Ronnie brightly to the Evans’. She grinned broadly at Harriet, then stepped into the fire, shouted “the Burrow!” and disappeared. Now Harriet and Mrs. Prewett alone remained. “Well... ‘bye then,” Harriet said to the Evans’.

They didn’t say anything at all. Harriet moved toward the fire, but just as she reached the edge of the hearth, Mrs. Prewett put out a hand and held her back. She was looking at the Evans’ in amazement.

“Harriet said good-bye to you,” she said. “Didn’t you hear her?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Harriet muttered to Mrs. Prewett. “Honestly, I don’t care.” 

Mrs. Prewett did not remove her hand from Harriet’s shoulder.

“You aren’t going to see your niece till next summer,” she said to Aunt Verona in mild indignation. “Surely you’re going to say good-bye?”

Aunt Verona’s face worked furiously. The idea of being taught consideration by a woman who had just blasted away half her living room wall seemed to be causing her intense suffering. But Mrs. Prewett’s wand was still in her hand, and Aunt Verona’s tiny eyes darted to it once, before she said, very resentfully, “Good-bye, then.”

“See you,” said Harriet, putting one foot forward into the green flames, which felt pleasantly like warm breath. At that moment, however, a horrible gagging sound erupted behind her, and Uncle Peter started to scream. Harriet wheeled around. Diana was no longer standing behind her parents. She was kneeling beside the coffee table, and she was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long, purple, slimy thing that was protruding from her mouth. One bewildered second later, Harriet realized that the foot-long thing was Diana’s tongue - and that a brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before her.

Uncle Peter hurled himself onto the ground beside Diana, seized the end of her swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of her mouth; unsurprisingly, Diana yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight him off. Aunt Verona was bellowing and waving her arms around, and Mrs. Prewett had to shout to make herself heard.

“Not to worry, I can sort her out!” She yelled, advancing on Diana with her wand outstretched, but Uncle Peter screamed worse than ever and threw himself on top of Diana, shielding her from Mrs. Prewett.

“No, really!” said Mrs. Prewett desperately. “It’s a simple process it was the toffee - my son Frankie - real practical joker - but it’s only an Engorgement Charm - at least, I think it is - please, I can correct it -”

But far from being reassured, the Evans’ became more panic- stricken; Uncle Peter was sobbing hysterically, tugging Diana’s tongue as though determined to rip it out; Diana appeared to be suffocating under the combined pressure of her father and her tongue; and Aunt Verona, who had lost control completely, seized a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mrs. Prewett, who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.

“Now really!” said Mrs. Prewett angrily, brandishing his wand. “I’m trying to help!”

Bellowing like a wounded hippo, Aunt Verona snatched up another ornament.

“Harriet, go! Just go!” Mrs. Prewett shouted, her wand on Aunt Verona. “I’ll sort this out!”

Harriet didn’t want to miss the fun, but Aunt Verona’s second ornament narrowly missed her left ear, and on balance she thought it best to leave the situation to Mrs. Prewett. She stepped into the fire, looking over her shoulder as she said “the Burrow!” Her last fleeting glimpse of the living room was of Mrs. Prewett blasting a third ornament out of Aunt Verona’s hand with her wand, Uncle Peter screaming and lying on top of Diana, and Diana’s tongue lolling around like a great slimy python. But next moment Harriet had begun to spin very fast, and the Evans’ living room was whipped out of sight in a rush of emerald-green flames.


	5. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes

Harriet spun faster and faster, elbows tucked tightly to her sides, blurred fireplaces flashing past her, until she started to feel sick and closed her eyes. Then, when at last she felt herself slowing down, she threw out her hands and came to a halt in time to prevent herself from falling face forward out of the Prewetts’ kitchen fire.

“Did she eat it?” said Frankie excitedly, holding out a hand to pull Harriet to her feet. “Yeah,” said Harriet, straightening up. “What was it?”

“Ton-Tongue Toffee,” said Frankie brightly. “Georgina and I invented them, and we’ve been looking for someone to test them on all summer...”

The tiny kitchen exploded with laughter; Harriet looked around and saw that Ronnie and Georgina were sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with two red-haired people Harriet had never seen before, though she knew immediately who they must be: Beth and Charlie, the two eldest Prewett sisters.

“How’re you doing, Harriet?” said the nearer of the two, grinning at her and holding out a large hand, which Harriet shook, feeling calluses and blisters under her fingers. This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins, shorter and stockier than Penelope and Ronnie, who were both long and lanky. She had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and so freckly that she looked almost tanned; her arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it.

Beth got to her feet, smiling, and also shook Harriet’s hand. Beth came as something of a surprise. Harriet knew that she worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Beth had been Head Girl at Hogwarts; Harriet had always imagined Beth to be an older version of Penelope: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone around. However, Beth was - there was no other word for it - cool. She was tall, with long hair that she had tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing four pairs of earrings with one with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Beth’s clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Harriet recognized her boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.

Before any of them could say anything else, there was a faint popping noise, and Mrs. Prewett appeared out of thin air at Georgina’s shoulder. She was looking angrier than Harriet had ever seen her.

“That wasn’t funny Frankie!” he shouted. “What on earth did you give that Muggle girl?”

“I didn’t give her anything,” said Frankie, with another evil grin. “I just dropped it... It was her fault she went and ate it, I never told her to.”

“You dropped it on purpose!” roared Mrs. Prewett. “You knew she’d eat it, you knew she was on a diet -”

“How big did her tongue get?” Georgina asked eagerly.

“It was four feet long before her parents would let me shrink it!” Harriet and the Prewetts roared with laughter again.

“It isn’t funny!” Mrs. Prewett shouted. “That sort of behavior seriously undermines wizard- Muggle relations! I spend half my life campaigning against the mistreatment of Muggles, and my own daughters -“

“We didn’t give it to her because she’s a Muggle!” said Frankie indignantly.

“No, we gave it to her because she’s a great bullying git,” said Georgina. “Isn’t she, Harriet?”

“Yeah, she is, Mrs. Prewett,” said Harriet earnestly.

“That’s not the point!” raged Mrs. Prewett. “You wait until I tell your father -”

“Tell me what?” said a voice behind them.

Mr. Prewett had just entered the kitchen. He was a short, plump man with a very kind face, though his eyes were presently narrowed with suspicion.

“Oh hello, Harriet, dear,” he said, spotting her and smiling. Then his eyes snapped back to his wife. “Tell me what, Arlene?”

Mrs. Prewett hesitated. Harriet could tell that, however angry she was with Frankie and Georgina, she hadn’t really intended to tell Mr. Prewett what had happened. There was a silence, while Mrs. Prewett eyed her husband nervously. Then two boys appeared in the kitchen doorway behind Mr. Prewett. One, with very bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth, was Harriet’s and Ronnie’s friend, Hermes Granger. The other, who was small and red-haired, was Ronnie’s younger brother, Jerry. Both of them smiled at Harriet, who grinned back, which made Jerry go scarlet - he had been very taken with Harriet ever since her first visit to the Burrow.

“Tell me what, Arlene?” Mr. Prewett repeated, in a dangerous sort of voice.

“It’s nothing, Michael,” mumbled Mrs. Prewett, “Frankie and Georgina just - but I’ve had words with them -”

“What have they done this time?” said Mr. Prewett. “If it’s got anything to do with Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes -”

“Why don’t you show Harriet where she’s sleeping, Ronnie?” said Hermes from the doorway.

“She knows where she’s sleeping,” said Ronnie, “in my room, she slept there last -” 

“We can all go,” said Hermes pointedly.

“Oh,” said Ronnie, cottoning on. “Right.”

“Yeah, we’ll come too,” said Georgina.

“You stay where you are!” snarled Mr. Prewett.

Harriet and Ronnie edged out of the kitchen, and they, Hermes, and Jerry set off along the narrow hallway and up the rickety staircase that zigzagged through the house to the upper stories.

“What are Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes?” Harriet asked as they climbed. Ronnie and Jerry both laughed, although Hermes didn’t.

“Dad found this stack of order forms when he was cleaning Frankie and Georgina’s room,” said Ronnie quietly. “Great long price lists for stuff they’ve invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they’d been inventing all that...”

“We’ve been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things,” said Jerry. “We thought they just liked the noise.”

“Only, most of the stuff - well, all of it, really - was a bit dangerous,” said Ronnie, “and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Dad went mad at them. Told them they weren’t allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms... He’s furious at them anyway. They didn’t get as many O.W.L.s as he expected.”

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students took at the age of fifteen.

“And then there was this big row,” Jerry said, “because Dad wants them to go into the Ministry of Magic like Mum, and they told h all they want to do is open a joke shop.”

Just then a door on the second landing opened, and a face poked out wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a very annoyed expression.

“Hi, Penelope,” said Harriet.

“Oh hello, Harriet,” said Penelope. “I was wondering who was making all the noise. I’m trying to work in here, you know I’ve got a report to finish for the office – and it’s rather difficult to concentrate when people keep thundering up and down the stairs.”

“We’re not thundering,” said Ronnie irritably. “We’re walking. Sorry if we’ve disturbed the top-secret workings of the Ministry of Magic.”

“What are you working on?” said Harriet.

“A report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation,” said Penelope smugly. “We’re trying to standardize cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are just a shade too thin - leakages have been increasing at a rate of almost three percent a year -”

“That’ll change the world, that report will,” said Ronnie. “Front page of the Daily Prophet, I expect, cauldron leaks.”

Penelope went slightly pink.

“You might sneer, Ronnie,” she said heatedly, “but unless some sort of international law is imposed we might well find the market flooded with flimsy, shallow bottomed products that seriously endanger -”

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” said Ronnie, and she started off upstairs again. Penelope slammed her bedroom door shut. As Harriet, Hermes, and Jerry followed Ronnie up three more flights of stairs, shouts from the kitchen below echoed up to them. It sounded as though Mrs. Prewett had told Mr. Prewett about the toffees.

The room at the top of the house where Ronnie slept looked much as it had the last time that Harriet had come to stay: the same posters of Ronnie’s favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, were whirling and waving on the walls and sloping ceiling, and the fish tank on the windowsill, which had previously held frog spawn, now contained one extremely large frog. Ronnie’s old rat, Scabbers, was here no more, but instead there was the tiny gray owl that had delivered Ronnie’s letter to Harriet in Privet Drive. It was hopping up and down in a small cage and twittering madly.

“Shut up, Pig,” said Ronnie, edging her way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into the room. “Frankie and Georgina are in here with us, because Beth and Charlie are in their room,” she told Harriet. “Penelope gets to keep her room all to herself because she’s got to work.”

“Er - why are you calling that owl Pig?” Harriet asked Ronnie.

“Because she’s being stupid,” said Jerry, “Its proper name is Pigwidgeon.”

“Yeah, and that’s not a stupid name at all,” said Ronnie sarcastically. “Jerry named him,” she explained to Harriet. “He reckons it’s sweet. And I tried to change it, but it was too late, he won’t answer to anything else. So now he’s Pig. I’ve got to keep him up here because he annoys Errol and Hermes. He annoys me too, come to that.”

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harriet knew Ronnie too well to take her seriously. She had moaned continually about her old rat, Scabbers, but had been most upset when Hermes’ cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.

“Where’s Crookshanks?” Harriet asked Hermes now.

“Out in the garden, I expect,” he said. “He likes chasing gnomes. He’s never seen any before.”

“Penelope’s enjoying work, then?” said Harriet, sitting down on one of the beds and watching the Chudley Cannons zooming in and out of the posters on the ceiling.

“Enjoying it?” said Ronnie darkly. “I don’t reckon she’d come home if Mum didn’t make her. She’s obsessed. Just don’t get her onto the subject of her boss. According to Mrs. Crouch... as I was saying to Mrs. Crouch... Mrs. Crouch is of the opinion... Mrs. Crouch was telling me... They’ll be announcing their engagement any day now.”

“Have you had a good summer, Harriet?” said Hermes. “Did you get our food parcels and everything?”

“Yeah, thanks a lot,” said Harriet. “They saved my life, those cakes.”

“And have you heard from -?” Ronnie began, but at a look from Hermes she fell silent. Harriet knew Ronnie had been about to ask about Siri. Ronnie and Hermes had been so deeply involved in helping Siri escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harriet’s godmother as she was. However, discussing her in front of Jerry was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Siri had escaped, or believed in her innocence.

“I think they’ve stopped arguing,” said Hermes, to cover the awkward moment, because Jerry was looking curiously from Ronnie to Harriet. “Shall we go down and help your dad with dinner?”

“Yeah, all right,” said Ronnie. The four of them left Ronnie’s room and went back downstairs to find Mr. Prewett alone in the kitchen, looking extremely bad-tempered.

“We’re eating out in the garden,” he said when they came in. “There’s just not room for eleven people in here. Could you take the plates outside, boys? Beth and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two,” he said to Ronnie and Harriet, pointing his wand a little more vigorously than he had intended at a pile of potatoes in the sink, which shot out of their skins so fast that they ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” he snapped, now directing his wand at a dustpan, which hopped off the sideboard and started skating across the floor, scooping up the potatoes. “Those two!” he burst out savagely, now pulling pots and pans out of a cupboard, and Harriet knew he meant Frankie and Georgina. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, I really don’t. No ambition, unless you count making as much trouble as they possibly can...”

Mr. Prewett slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave his wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as he stirred.

“It’s not as though they haven’t got brains,” he continued irritably, taking the saucepan over to the stove and lighting it with a further poke of his wand, “but they’re wasting them, and unless they pull themselves together soon, they’ll be in real trouble. I’ve had more owls from Hogwarts about them than the rest put together. If they carry on the way they’re going, they’ll end up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office.”

Mr. Prewett jabbed his wand at the cutlery drawer, which shot open. Harriet and Ronnie both jumped out of the way as several knives soared out of it, flew across the kitchen, and began chopping the potatoes, which had just been tipped back into the sink by the dustpan.

“I don’t know where we went wrong with them,” said Mr. Prewett, putting down his wand and starting to pull out still more saucepans. “It’s been the same for years, one thing after another, and they won’t listen to - OH NOT AGAIN!”

He had picked up her wand from the table, and it had emitted a loud squeak and turned into a giant rubber mouse. “One of their fake wands again!” he shouted. “How many times have I told them not to leave them lying around?”

He grabbed his real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove was smoking.

“C’mon,” Ronnie said hurriedly to Harriet, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, “let’s go and help Beth and Charlie.”

They left Mr. Prewett and headed out the back door into the yard.

They had only gone a few paces when Hermes’ bandy-legged ginger cat, Crookshanks, came pelting out of the garden, bottle-brush tail held high in the air, chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs. Harriet recognized it instantly as a gnome. Barely ten inches high, its horny little feet pattered very fast as it sprinted across the yard and dived headlong into one of the Wellington boots that lay scattered around the door. Harriet could hear the gnome giggling madly as Crookshanks inserted a paw into the boot, trying to reach it. Meanwhile, a very loud crashing noise was coming from the other side of the house. The source of the commotion was revealed as they entered the garden, and saw that Beth and Charlie both had their wands out, and were making two battered old tables fly high above the lawn, smashing into each other, each attempting to knock the other’s out of the air. Frankie and Georgina were cheering, Jerry was laughing, and Hermes was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety. Beth’s table caught Charlie’s with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Penelope’s head poking out of a window on the second floor.

“Will you keep it down?!” she bellowed.

“Sorry, Penny,” said Beth, grinning. “How’re the cauldron bottoms coming on?”

“Very badly,” said Penelope peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling, Beth and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of her wand, Beth reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.

By seven o’clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mr. Prewett’s excellent cooking, and the nine Prewetts, Harrie, and Hermes were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. To somebody who had been living on meals of increasingly stale cake all summer, this was paradise, and at first, Harriet listened rather than talked as she helped herself to chicken and ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.

At the far end of the table, Penelope was telling her mother all about her report on cauldron bottoms.

“I’ve told Mrs. Crouch that I’ll have it ready by Tuesday,” Penelope was saying pompously. “That’s a bit sooner than she expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think she’ll be grateful I’ve done it in good time, I mean, its extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We’re just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Lucinda Bagman -”  
“I like Lucinda,” said Mrs. Prewett mildly. “She was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did her a bit of a favor: her brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble - a lawnmower with unnatural powers - I smoothed the whole thing over.”

“Oh Bagman’s likable enough, of course,” said Penelope dismissively, “but how she ever got to be Head of Department... when I compare her to Mrs. Crouch! I can’t see Mrs. Crouch losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what’s happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?”

“Yes, I was asking Lucinda about that,” said Mrs. Prewett, frowning. “She says Bertha’s gotten lost plenty of times before now - though must say, if it was someone in my department, I’d be worried...”

“Oh Bertha’s hopeless, all right,” said Penelope. “I hear she’s been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she’s worth... but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. Mrs. Crouch has been taking a personal interest, she worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mrs. Crouch was quite fond of her - but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However” - Penelope heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine - “we’ve got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we’ve got another big event to organize right after the World Cup.”

Penelope cleared her throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table where Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes were sitting. “You know the one I’m talking about, Mother.” She raised her voice slightly. “The top-secret one.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes and muttered to Harriet and Hermes, “She’s been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since she started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons.”

In the middle of the table, Mr. Prewett was arguing with Beth about her earrings, which seemed to be a recent acquisition.

“... with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Beth, what do they say at the bank?”

“Dad, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure,” said Beth patiently.

“And your hair’s getting silly, dear,” said Mr. Prewett, fingering his wand lovingly.” I wish you’d let me give it a trim...”

“I like it,” said Jerry, who was sitting beside Beth. “You’re so old-fashioned, Dad. Anyway, it’s nowhere near as long as Professor Dumbledore’s...” Next to Mr. Prewett, Frankie, Georgina, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about the World Cup.

“It’s got to be Ireland,” said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. “They flattened Peru in the semifinals.”

“Bulgaria has got Viktoria Krum, though,” said Frankie.

“Krum’s one decent player, Ireland has got seven,” said Charlie shortly. “I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was.”

“What happened?” said Harriet eagerly, regretting more than ever her isolation from the wizarding world when she was stuck on Privet Drive.

“Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten,” said Charlie gloomily. “Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg.”

Harriet had been on the Gryffindor House Quidditch team ever since her first year at Hogwarts and owned one of the best racing brooms in the world, a Firebolt. Flying came more naturally to Harriet than anything else in the magical world, and she played in the position of Seeker on the Gryffindor House team.

Mrs. Prewett conjured up candles to light the darkening garden before they had their homemade strawberry ice cream, and by the time they had finished, moths were fluttering low over the table, and the warm air was perfumed with the smells of grass and honeysuckle. Harriet was feeling extremely well fed and at peace with the world as she watched several gnomes sprinting through the rosebushes, laughing madly and closely pursued by Crookshanks.

Ronnie looked carefully up the table to check that the rest of the family were all busy talking, then she said very quietly to Harriet, “So - have you heard from Siri lately?”

Hermes looked around, listening closely.

“Yeah,” said Harriet softly, “twice. She sounds okay. I wrote to her yesterday. She might write back while I’m here.”

She suddenly remembered the reason she had written to Siri, and for a moment was on the verge of telling Ronnie and Hermes about her scar hurting again, and about the dream that had awoken her... but she really didn’t want to worry them just now, not when she herself was feeling so happy and peaceful.

“Look at the time,” Mr. Prewett said suddenly, checking his wristwatch. “You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you you’ll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harriet, if you leave your school list out, I’ll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I’m getting everyone else’s. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time.”

“Wow - hope it does this time!” said Harriet enthusiastically.  
“Well, I certainly don’t,” said Penelope sanctimoniously. “I shudder to think what the state of my in-tray would be if I was away from work for five days.”

“Yeah, someone might slip dragon dung in it again, eh, Penny?” said Frankie.

“That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!” said Penelope, going very red in the face. “It was nothing personal!”

“It was,” Frankie whispered to Harriet as they got up from the table. “We sent it.”


	6. The Portkey

Harriet felt as though she had barely lain down to steep in Ronnie’s room when she was being shaken awake by Mr. Prewett.

“Time to go, Harriet, dear,” he whispered, moving away to wake Ronnie.

Harriet felt around for her glasses, put them on, and sat up. It was still dark outside. Ronnie muttered indistinctly as her father roused her. At the foot of Harriet’s mattress she saw two large, disheveled shapes emerging from tangles of blankets.

“‘S’ time already?” said Frankie groggily.  
They dressed in silence, too sleepy to talk, then, yawning and stretching, the four of them headed downstairs into the kitchen.

Mr. Prewett was stirring the contents of a large pot on the stove, while Mrs. Prewett was sitting at the table, checking a sheaf of large parchment tickets. She looked up as the girls entered and spread her arms so that they could see her clothes more clearly. She was wearing what appeared to be a golfing sweater and a very old pair of jeans, slightly too big for her and held up with a thick leather belt.

“What d’you think?” she asked anxiously. “We’re supposed to go incognito - do I look like a Muggle, Harriet?”

“Yeah,” said Harriet, smiling, “very good.”

“Where’re Beth and Charlie and Pe-Pe-Penelope?” said Georgina, failing to stifle a huge yawn.

“Well, they’re Apparating, aren’t they?” said Mr. Prewett, heaving the large pot over to the table and starting to ladle porridge into bowls. “So they can have a bit of a lie-in.”

Harriet knew that Apparating meant disappearing from one place and reappearing almost instantly in another, but had never known any Hogwarts student to do it, and understood that it was very difficult.

“So they’re still in bed?” said Frankie grumpily, pulling her bowl of porridge toward her. “Why can’t we Apparate too?”

“Because you’re not of age and you haven’t passed your test,” snapped Mr. Prewett. “And where have those boys got to?”

He bustled out of the kitchen and they heard him climbing the stairs.

“You have to pass a test to Apparate?” Harriet asked.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Prewett, tucking the tickets safely into the back pocket of his jeans. “The Department of Magical Transportation had to fine a couple of people the other day for Apparating without a license. It’s not easy, Apparition, and when it’s not done property it can lead to nasty complications. This pair I’m talking about went and splinched themselves.”

Everyone around the table except Harriet winced.

“Er - splinched?” said Harriet.

“They left half of themselves behind,” said Mrs. Prewett, now spooning large amounts of treacle onto her porridge. “So, of course, they were stuck. Couldn’t move either way. Had to wait for the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad to sort them out. Meant a fair old bit of paperwork, I can tell you, what with the Muggles who spotted the body parts they’d left behind...”

Harriet had a sudden vision of a pair of legs and an eyeball lying abandoned on the pavement of Privet Drive.

“Were they okay?” she asked, startled.

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Prewett matter-of-factly. “But they got a heavy fine, and I don’t think they’ll be trying it again in a hurry. You don’t mess around with Apparition. There are plenty of adult wizards who don’t bother with it. Prefer brooms - slower, but safer.”

“But Beth and Charlie and Penelope can all do it?”

“Charlie had to take the test twice,” said Frankie, grinning. “She failed the first time. Apparated five miles south of where she meant to, right on top of some poor old dear doing her shopping, remember?”

“Yes, well, she passed the second time,” said Mr. Prewett, marching back into the kitchen amid hearty sniggers.

“Penelope only passed two weeks ago,” said Georgina. “She’s been Apparating downstairs every morning since, just to prove she can.”

There were footsteps down the passageway and Hermes and Jerry came into the kitchen, both looking pale and drowsy.

“Why do we have to be up so early?” Jerry said, rubbing his eyes and sitting down at the table. “We’ve got a bit of a walk,” said Mrs. Prewett.

“Walk?” said Harriet. “What, are we walking to the World Cup?”

“No, no, that’s miles away,” said Mrs. Prewett, smiling. “We only need to walk a short way. It’s just that it’s very difficult for a large number of wizards to congregate without attracting Muggle attention. We have to be very careful about how we travel at the best of times, and on a huge occasion like the Quidditch World Cup...”

“Georgina!” said Mr. Prewett sharply, and they all jumped.

“What?” said Georgina, in an innocent tone that deceived nobody.

“What is that in your pocket?”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t you lie to me!”

Mr. Prewett pointed his wand at Georgina’s pocket and said, “Accio!”

Several small, brightly colored objects zoomed out of Georgina’s pocket; she made a grab for them but missed, and they sped right into Mr. Prewett’s outstretched hand.

“We told you to destroy them!” said Mr. Prewett furiously, holding up what were unmistakably more Ton-Tongue Toffees. “We told you to get rid of the lot! Empty your pockets, go on, both of you!”

It was an unpleasant scene; the twins had evidently been trying to smuggle as many toffees out of the house as possible, and it was only by using his Summoning Charm that Mr. Prewett managed to find them all.

“Accio! Accio! Accio!” he shouted, and toffees zoomed from all sorts of unlikely places, including the lining of Georgina’s jacket and the turn-ups of Frankie’s jeans.

“We spent six months developing those!” Frankie shouted at her father as he threw the toffees away.

“Oh a fine way to spend six months!” he shrieked. “No wonder you didn’t get more O.W.L.s!”

All in all, the atmosphere was not very friendly as they took their departure. Mr. Prewett was still glowering as he kissed Mrs. Prewett on the cheek, though not nearly as much as the twins, who had each hoisted their rucksacks onto their backs and walked out without a word to him.

“Well, have a lovely time,” said Mr. Prewett, “and behave yourselves,” he called after the twins’ retreating backs, but they did not look back or answer. “I’ll send Beth, Charlie, and Penelope along around midday,” Mr. Prewett said to Mrs Prewett, as she, Harriet, Ronnie, Hermes, and Jerry set off across the dark garden after Frankie and Georgina.

It was chilly and the moon was still out. Only a dull, greenish tinge along the horizon to their right showed that daybreak was drawing closer. Harriet, having been thinking about thousands of wizards speeding toward the Quidditch World Cup, sped up to walk with Mrs. Prewett.

“So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?” she asked.

“It’s been a massive organizational problem,” sighed Mrs. Prewett. “The trouble is, about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just haven’t got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places Muggles can’t penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole Ministry’s been working on it for months. First, of course, we have to stagger the arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A limited number use Muggle transport, but we can’t have too many clogging up their buses and trains - remember, wizards are coming from all over the world. Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear, well away from Muggles. I believe there’s a handy wood they’re using as the Apparition point. For those who don’t want to Apparate, or can’t, we use Portkeys. They’re objects that are used to transport wizards from one spot to another at a prearranged time. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that’s where we’re headed.”

Mrs. Prewett pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the village of Ottery St. Catchpole.

“What sort of objects are Portkeys?” said Harriet curiously.

“Well, they can be anything,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Unobtrusive things, obviously, so Muggles don’t go picking them up and playing with them... stuff they’ll just think is litter...”

They trudged down the dark, dank lane toward the village, the silence broken only by their footsteps. The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through the village, its inky blackness diluting to deepest blue. Harriet’s hands and feet were freezing. Mrs. Prewett kept checking her watch.

They didn’t have breath to spare for talking as they began to climb Stoatshead Hill, stumbling occasionally in hidden rabbit holes, slipping on thick black tuffets of grass. Each breath Harriet took was sharp in her chest and her legs were starting to seize up when, at last, her feet found level ground.

“Whew,” panted Mrs. Prewett, taking off her glasses and wiping them on her sweater. “Well, we’ve made good time - we’ve got ten minutes.”

Hermes came over the crest of the hill last, clutching a stitch in his side.

“Now we just need the Portkey,” said Mrs. Prewett, replacing her glasses and squinting around at the ground. “It won’t be big... Come on...”

They spread out, searching. They had only been at it for a couple of minutes, however, when a shout rent the still air.

“Over here, Arlene! Over here, lass, we’ve got it.”

Two figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the hilltop.

“Amy!” said Mrs. Prewett, smiling as she strode over to the woman who had shouted. The rest of them followed.

Mrs. Prewett was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced witch with scrubby brown hair, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in her other hand.

“This is Amy Diggory, everyone,” said Mrs. Prewett. “She works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know her daughter, Celia?”

Celia Diggory was an extremely beautiful girl of around seventeen. She was Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts. “Hi,” said Celia, looking around at them all. Everybody said hi back except Frankie and Georgina, who merely nodded. They had never quite forgiven Celia for beating their team, Gryffindor, in the first Quidditch match of the previous year.

“Long walk, Arlene?” Celia’a mother asked.

“Not too bad,” said Mrs. Prewett. “We live just on the other side of the village there. You?”

“Had to get up at two, didn’t we, Ce? I tell you, I’ll be glad when she’s got her Apparition test. Still... not complaining... Quidditch World Cup, wouldn’t miss it for a sackful of Galleons - and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy...” Amy Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three Prewett girls, Harriet, Hermes, and Jerry. “All these yours, Arlene?”

“Oh no, only the redheads,” said Mrs. Prewett, pointing out her children. “This is Hermes, friend of Ronnie’s - and Harriet, another friend -”

“Merlin’s beard,” said Amy Diggory, her eyes widening. “Harriet? Harriet Evans?” 

“Er - yeah,” said Harriet.

Harriet was used to people looking curiously at her when they met her, used to the way their eyes moved at once to the lightning scar on her forehead, but it always made her feel uncomfortable.

“Ce’s talked about you, of course,” said Amy Diggory. “Told us all about playing against you last year... I said to her, I said - Ce, that’ll be something to tell your grandchildren, that will... You beat Harriet Evans!”

Harriet couldn’t think of any reply to this, so she remained silent. Frankie and Georgina were both scowling again. Celia looked slightly embarrassed.

“Harriet fell off her broom, Mum,” she muttered. “I told you... it was an accident...”

“Yes, but you didn’t fall off, did you?” roared Amy genially, slapping her daughter on her back. “Always modest, our Ce, always the lady... but the best woman won, I’m sure Harriet’s say the same, wouldn’t you, eh? One falls off her broom, one stays on, you don’t need to be a genius to tell which one’s the better flier!”

“Must be nearly time,” said Mrs. Prewett quickly, pulling out her watch again. “Do you know whether we’re waiting for any more, Amy?”

“No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn’t get tickets,” said Mrs. Diggory. “There aren’t any more of us in this area, are there?”

“Not that I know of,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Yes, it’s a minute off... We’d better get ready...” she looked around at Harriet and Hermes. “You just need to touch the Portkey, that’s all, a finger will do -”

With difficulty, owing to their bulky backpacks, the nine of them crowded around the old boot held out by Amy Diggory. They all stood there, in a tight circle, as a chill breeze swept over the hilltop.

Nobody spoke. It suddenly occurred to Harriet how odd this would look if a Muggle were to walk up here now... nine people, two of them grown women, clutching this manky old boot in the semidarkness, waiting...

“Three...” muttered Mrs. Prewett, one eye still on her watch, ‘two... one...”

It happened immediately: Harriet felt as though a hook just behind her navel had been suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. Her feet left the ground; she could feel Ronnie and Hermes on either side of her, their shoulders banging into hers; they were all speeding forward in a howl of wind and swirling color; her forefinger was stuck to the boot as though it was pulling her magnetically onward and then - her feet slammed into the ground; Ronnie staggered into her and she fell over; the Portkey hit the ground near her head with a heavy thud. Harriet looked up. Mrs. Prewett, Mrs. Diggory, and Celia were still standing, though looking very windswept; everybody else was on the ground.

“Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill,” said a voice.


	7. Bagman and Crouch

Harriet disentangled herself from Ronnie and got to her feet. They had arrived on what appeared to be a deserted stretch of misty moor. In front of them was a pair of tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch, the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles, though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.

“Morning, Basil,” said Mrs. Prewett, picking up the boot and handing it to the kilted wizard, who threw it into a large box of used Portkeys beside him; Harriet could see an old newspaper, an empty drinks can, and a punctured football.

“Hello there, Arlene,” said Basil wearily. “Not on duty, eh? It’s all right for some... We’ve been here all night... You’d better get out of the way, we’ve got a big party coming in from the Black Forest at five fifteen. Hang on, I’ll find your campsite... Prewett... Prewett...” He consulted his parchment list. “About a quarter of a mile’s walk over there, first field you come to. Site manager’s called Mr. Roberts. Diggory... second field... ask for Mr. Payne.”

“Thanks, Basil,” said Mrs. Prewett, and she beckoned everyone to follow her. They set off across the deserted moor, unable to make out much through the mist.

After about twenty minutes, a small stone cottage next to a gate swam into view. Beyond it, Harriet could just make out the ghostly shapes of hundreds and hundreds of tents, rising up the gentle slope of a large field toward a dark wood on the horizon. They said good-bye to the Diggorys and approached the cottage door. A man was standing in the doorway, looking out at the tents. Harriet knew at a glance that this was the only real Muggle for several acres. When he heard their footsteps, he turned his head to look at them.

“Morning!” said Mrs. Prewett brightly.

“Morning,” said the Muggle.

“Would you be Mr. Roberts?”

“Aye, I would,” said Mr. Roberts. “And who’re you?”

“Prewett - two tents, booked a couple of days ago?”

“Aye,” said Mr. Roberts, consulting a list tacked to the door. “You’ve got a space up by the wood there. Just the one night?”

“That’s it,” said Mrs. Prewett.

“You’ll be paying now, then?” said Mr. Roberts.

“Ah - right - certainly -” said Mrs. Prewett. She retreated a short distance from the cottage and beckoned Harriet toward her. “Help me, Harriet,” she muttered, pulling a roll of Muggle money from her pocket and starting to peel the notes apart. “This one’s a - a - a ten? Ah yes, I see the little number on it now... So this is a five?”

“A twenty,” Harriet corrected her in an undertone, uncomfortably aware of Mr. Roberts trying to catch every word.

“Ah yes, so it is... I don’t know, these little bits of paper...”

“You foreign?” said Mr. Roberts as Mrs. Prewett returned with the correct notes.

“Foreign?” repeated Mrs. Prewett, puzzled.

“You’re not the first one who’s had trouble with money,” said Mr. Roberts, scrutinizing Mrs. Prewett closely. “I had two try and pay me with great gold coins the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago.”

“Did you really?” said Mrs. Prewett nervously.

Mr. Roberts rummaged around in a tin for some change.

“Never been this crowded,” he said suddenly, looking out over the misty field again. “Hundreds of pre-bookings. People usually just turn up...”

“Is that right?” said Mrs. Prewett, her hand held out for her change, but Mr. Roberts didn’t give it to her.

“Aye,” he said thoughtfully. “People from all over. Loads of foreigners. And not just foreigners. Weirdos, you know? There’s a bloke walking ‘round in a kilt and a poncho.”

“Shouldn’t he?” said Mrs. Prewett anxiously.

“It’s like some sort of... I dunno... like some sort of rally,” said Mr. Roberts. “They all seem to know each other. Like a big party.”

At that moment, a wizard in plus-fours appeared out of thin air next to Mr. Roberts’s front door.

“Obliviate!” he said sharply, pointing his wand at Mr. Roberts.

Instantly, Mr. Roberts’s eyes slid out of focus, his brows unknitted, and a took of dreamy unconcern fell over his face. Harriet recognized the symptoms of one who had just had his memory modified.

“A map of the campsite for you,” Mr. Roberts said placidly to Mrs. Prewett. “And your change.” 

“Thanks very much,” said Mrs. Prewett.

The wizard in plus-fours accompanied them toward the gate to the campsite. He looked exhausted: His chin was blue with stubble and there were deep purple shadows under his eyes. Once out of earshot of Mr. Roberts, he muttered to Mr. Weasley, “Been having a lot of trouble with him. Needs a Memory Charm ten times a day to keep him happy. And Lucinda Bagman’s not helping. Trotting around talking about Bludgers and Quaffles at the top of her voice, not a worry about anti-Muggle security Blimey, I’ll be glad when this is over. See you later, Arlene.” He Disapparated.

“I thought Mrs. Bagman was Head of Magical Games and Sports,” said Jerry, looking surprised. “She should know better than to talk about Bludgers near Muggles, shouldn’t she?”

“She should,” said Mrs. Prewett, smiling, and leading them through the gates into the campsite, “but Lucinda’s always been a bit... well... lax about security. You couldn’t wish for a more enthusiastic head of the sports department though. She played Quidditch for England himself, you know. And she was the best Beater the Wimbourne Wasps ever had.”

They trudged up the misty field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible, but had slipped up by adding chimneys, or bellpulls, or weather vanes. However, here and there was a tent so obviously magical that Harriet could hardly be surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. Halfway up the field stood an extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace, with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance. A little farther on they passed a tent that had three floors and several turrets; and a short way beyond that was a tent that had a front garden attached, complete with birdbath, sundial, and fountain.

“Always the same,” said Mrs. Prewett, smiling. “We can’t resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us.”

They had reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field, and here was an empty space, with a small sign hammered into the ground that read PRUITT.

“Couldn’t have a better spot!” said Mrs. Prewett happily. “The field is just on the other side of the wood there, we’re as close as we could be.” She hoisted her backpack from her shoulders. “Right,” she said excitedly, “no magic allowed, strictly speaking, not when we’re out in these numbers on Muggle land. We’ll be putting these tents up by hand! Shouldn’t be too difficult... Muggles do it all the time... Here, Harriet, where do you reckon we should start?”

Harriet had never been camping in her life; the Evans’ had never taken her on any kind of holiday, preferring to leave her with Mr. Figg, an old neighbor. However, she and Hermes worked out where most of the poles and pegs should go, and though Mrs. Prewett was more of a hindrance than a help, because she got thoroughly overexcited when it came to using the mallet, they finally managed to erect a pair of shabby two-man tents.

All of them stood back to admire their handiwork. Nobody looking at these tents would guess they belonged to wizards, Harriet thought, but the trouble was that once Beth, Charlie, and Penelope arrived, they would be a party of ten. Hermes seemed to have spotted this problem too; he gave Harriet a quizzical look as Mrs. Prewett dropped to her hands and knees and entered the first tent.

“We’ll be a bit cramped,” she called, “but I think we’ll all squeeze in. Come and have a look.”

Harriet bent down, ducked under the tent flap, and felt her jaw drop. She had walked into what looked like an old-fashioned, three room flat, complete with bathroom and kitchen. Oddly enough, it was furnished in exactly the same sort of style as Mr. Figg’s house: There were crocheted covers on the mismatched chairs and a strong smell of cats.

“Well, it’s not for long,” said Mrs. Prewett, mopping her forehead with a handkerchief and peering in at the four bunk beds that stood in the bedroom. “I borrowed this from Perkins at the office. Doesn’t camp much anymore, poor fellow, she’s got lumbago.”

She picked up the dusty kettle and peered inside it. “We’ll need water...”

“There’s a tap marked on this map the Muggle gave us,” said Ronnie, who had followed Harriet inside the tent and seemed completely unimpressed by its extraordinary inner proportions. “It’s on the other side of the field.”

“Well, why don’t you, Harriet, and Hermes go and get us some water then” - Mrs. Prewett handed over the kettle and a couple of saucepans - “and the rest of us will get some wood for a fire?”

“But we’ve got an oven,” said Ronnie. “Why can’t we just -”

“Ronnie, anti-Muggle security!” said Mrs. Prewett, her face shining with anticipation. “When real Muggles camp, they cook on fires outdoors. I’ve seen them at it!”

After a quick tour of the boys’ tent, which was slightly smaller than the girls’, though without the smell of cats, Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes set off across the campsite with the kettle and saucepans.

Now, with the sun newly risen and the mist lifting, they could see the city of tents that stretched in every direction. They made their way slowly through the rows, staring eagerly around. It was only just dawning on Harriet how many witches and wizards there must be in the world; she had never really thought much about those in other countries.

Their fellow campers were starting to wake up. First to stir were the families with small children; Harriet had never seen witches and wizards this young before. A tiny boy no older than two was crouched outside a large pyramid-shaped tent, holding a wand and poking happily at a slug in the grass, which was swelling slowly to the size of a salami. As they drew level with him, his mother came hurrying out of the tent.

“How many times, Kevin? You don’t - touch - Daddy’s - wand - yecchh!” She had trodden on the giant slug, which burst. Her scolding carried after them on the still air, mingling with the little boy’s yells - “You bust slug! You bust slug!”

A short way farther on, they saw two little witches, barely older than Kevin, who were riding toy broomsticks that rose only high enough for the girls’ toes to skim the dewy grass. A Ministry wizard had already spotted them; as he hurried past Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes he muttered distractedly, “In broad daylight! Parents having a lie-in, I suppose -”

Here and there adult wizards and witches were emerging from their tents and starting to cook breakfast. Some, with furtive looks around them, conjured fires with their wands; others were striking matches with dubious looks on their faces, as though sure this couldn’t work. Three African wizards sat in serious conversation, all of them wearing long white robes and roasting what looked like a rabbit on a bright purple fire, while a group of middle-aged American witches sat gossiping happily beneath a spangled banner stretched between their tents that read: THE SALEM WITCHES’ INSTITUTE. Harriet caught snatches of conversation in strange languages from the inside of tents they passed, and though she couldn’t understand a word, the tone of every single voice was excited.

“Er - is it my eyes, or has everything gone green?” said Ronnie.

It wasn’t just Ronnie’s eyes. They had walked into a patch of tents that were all covered with a thick growth of shamrocks, so that it looked as though small, oddly shaped hillocks had sprouted out of the earth. Grinning faces could be seen under those that had their flaps open. Then, from behind them, they heard their names.

“Harriet! Ronnie! Hermes!”

It was Sinead Finnigan, their fellow Gryffindor fourth year. She was sitting in front of her own shamrock-covered tent, with a sandy-haired man who had to be her father, and her best friend, Dinah Thomas, also of Gryffindor. “Like the decorations?” said Sinead, grinning. “The Ministry’s not too happy.”

“Ah, why shouldn’t we show our colors?” said Mr. Finnigan. “You should see what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents. You’ll be supporting Ireland, of course?” he added, eyeing Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes beadily. When they had assured him that they were indeed supporting Ireland, they set off again, though, as Ronnie said, “Like we’d say anything else surrounded by that lot.”

“I wonder what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents?” said Hermes.

“Let’s go and have a look,” said Harriet, pointing to a large patch of tents upfield, where the Bulgarian flag - white, green, and red - was fluttering in the breeze. The tents here had not been bedecked with plant life, but each and every one of them had the same poster attached to it, a poster of a very surly face with heavy black eyebrows. The picture was, of course, moving, but all it did was blink and scowl.

“Krum,” said Ronnie quietly.

“What?” said Hermes.

“Krum!” said Ronnie. “Viktoria Lrum, the Bulgarian Seeker!”

“She looks really grumpy,” said Hermes, looking around at the many Krums blinking and scowling at them.

“Really grumpy?” Ronnie raised her eyes to the heavens. “Who cares what she looks like? She’s unbelievable. She’s really young too. Only just eighteen or something. She’s a genius, you wait until tonight, you’ll see.”

There was already a small queue for the tap in the corner of the field. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes joined it, right behind a pair of men who were having a heated argument. One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of pinstriped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.

“Just put them on, Archie, there’s a good gal. You can’t walk around like that, the Muggle at the gate’s already getting suspicious –“

“I bought this in a Muggle shop,” said the old wizard stubbornly. “Muggles wear them.”

“Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these,” said the Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.

“I’m not putting them on,” said old Archie in indignation. “I like a healthy breeze ‘round my privates, thanks.”

Hermes was overcome with such a strong fit of the giggles at this point that he had to duck out of the queue and only returned when Archie had collected his water and moved away. Walking more slowly now, because of the weight of the water, they made their way back through the campsite. Here and there, they saw more familiar faces: other Hogwarts students with their families. Olivia Wood, the old captain of Harriet’s House Quidditch team, who had just left Hogwarts, dragged Harriet over to her parents’ tent to introduce her, and told her excitedly that she had just been signed to the Puddlemere United reserve team. 

Next they were hailed by Eleanor Macmillan, a Hufflepuff fourth year, and a little farther on they saw Chen Chang, a very pretty boy who played Seeker on the Ravenclaw team. He waved and smiled at Harriet, who slopped quite a lot of water down her front as she waved back. More to stop Ronnie from smirking than anything, Harriet hurriedly pointed out a large group of teenagers whom she had never seen before.

“Who d’you reckon they are?” she said. “They don’t go to Hogwarts, do they?”

“‘Spect they go to some foreign school,” said Ronnie. “I know there are others. Never met anyone who went to one, though. Beth had a penfriend at a school in Brazil... this was years and years ago... and she wanted to go on an exchange trip but Mum and Dad couldn’t afford it. Her penfriend got all offended when she said she wasn’t going and sent her a cursed hat. It made her ears shrivel up.”

Harriet laughed but didn’t voice the amazement she felt at hearing about other wizarding schools. She supposed, now that she saw representatives of so many nationalities in the campsite, that she had been stupid never to realize that Hogwarts couldn’t be the only one. She glanced at Hermes, who looked utterly unsurprised by the information. No doubt he had run across the news about other wizarding schools in some book or other.

“You’ve been ages,” said Georgina when they finally got back to the Prewetts’ tents. 

“Met a few people,” said Ronnie, setting the water down. “You’ve not got that fire started yet?” 

“Mum’s having fun with the matches,” said Frankie.

Mrs. Prewett was having no success at all in lighting the fire, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Splintered matches littered the ground around her, but she looked as though she was having the time of her life.

“Oops!” she said as she managed to light a match and promptly dropped it in surprise.

“Come here, Mrs. Prewett,” said Hermes kindly, taking the box from her, and showing her how to do it properly.

At last they got the fire lit, though it was at least another hour before it was hot enough to cook anything. There was plenty to watch while they waited, however. Their tent seemed to be pitched right alongside a kind of thoroughfare to the field, and Ministry members kept hurrying up and down it, greeting Mrs. Prewett cordially as they passed. Mrs. Prewett kept up a running commentary, mainly for Harriet’s and Hermes’ benefit; her own children knew too much about the Ministry to be greatly interested.

“That was Cuthbert Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office... Here comes Gertrude Wimple; she’s with the Committee on Experimental Charms; she’s had those horns for a while now... Hello, Arnie... Arnold Peasegood, he’s an Obliviator - member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, you know... and that’s Bode and Croaker... they’re Unspeakables...”

“They’re what?”

“From the Department of Mysteries, top secret, no idea what they get up to...”

At last, the fire was ready, and they had just started cooking eggs and sausages when Beth, Charlie, and Penelope came strolling out of the woods toward them.

“Just Apparated, Mum,” said Penelope loudly. “Ah, excellent, lunch!”

They were halfway through their plates of eggs and sausages when Mrs. Prewett jumped to her feet, waving and grinning at a woman who was striding toward them.

“Aha!” she said. “The woman of the moment! Lucinda!”

Lucinda Bagman was easily the most noticeable person Harriet had seen so far, even including old Archie in his flowered nightdress. She was wearing long Quidditch robes in thick horizontal stripes of bright yellow and black. An enormous picture of a wasp was splashed across her chest. She had the look of a powerfully built woman gone slightly to seed; the robes were stretched tightly across a large belly she surely had not had in the days when she had played Quidditch for England. Her nose was squashed (probably broken by a stray Bludger, Harriet thought), but her round blue eyes, short blond hair, and rosy complexion made her look like a very overgrown schoolgirl.

“Ahoy there!” Bagman called happily. She was walking as though she had springs attached to the balls of her feet and was plainly in a state of wild excitement.

“Arlene, my friend,” she puffed as she reached the campfire, “what a day, eh? What a day! Could we have asked for more perfect weather? A cloudless night coming... and hardly a hiccough in the arrangements... Not much for me to do!”

Behind her, a group of haggard-looking Ministry wizards rushed past, pointing at the distant evidence of some sort of a magical fire that was sending violet sparks twenty feet into the air. Penelope hurried forward with her hand outstretched. Apparently her disapproval of the way Lucinda Bagman ran her department did not prevent her from wanting to make a good impression.

“Ah - yes,” said Mrs. Prewett, grinning, “this is my daughter Penelope. She’s just started at the Ministry - and this is Frankie - no, Georgina, sorry - that’s Frankie - Beth, Charlie, Ronnie - my son, Jerry and Ronnie’s friends, Hermes Granger and Harriet Potter.”

Bagman did the smallest of double takes when she heard Harriet’s name, and her eyes performed the familiar flick upward to the scar on Harriet’s forehead.

“Everyone,” Mrs. Prewett continued, “this is Lucinda Bagman, you know who she is, it’s thanks to her we’ve got such good tickets -”

Bagman beamed and waved her hand as if to say it had been nothing.

“Fancy a flutter on the match, Arlene?” she said eagerly, jingling what seemed to be a large amount of gold in the pockets of her yellow-and-black robes. “I’ve already got Wren Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first - I offered her nice odds, considering Ireland’s front three are the strongest I’ve seen in years - and little Arnold Timms has put up half shares in his eel farm on a weeklong match.”

“Oh... go on then,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Let’s see... a Galleon on Ireland to win?”

“A Galleon?” Lucinda Bagman looked slightly disappointed, but recovered herself. “Very well, very well... any other takers?”

“They’re a bit young to be gambling,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Micheal wouldn’t like -”

“We’ll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts,” said Frankie as she and Georgina quickly pooled all their money, “that Ireland wins - but Viktoria Krum gets the Snitch. Oh and we’ll throw in a fake wand.”

“You don’t want to go showing Mrs. Bagman rubbish like that,” Penelope hissed, but Bagman didn’t seem to think the wand was rubbish at all; on the contrary, her girlish face shone with excitement as she took it from Frankie, and when the wand gave a loud squawk and turned into a rubber chicken, Bagman roared with laughter.

“Excellent! I haven’t seen one that convincing in years! I’d pay five Galleons for that!” Penelope froze in an attitude of stunned disapproval.

“Girls,” said Mrs. Prewett under her breath, “I don’t want you betting... That’s all your savings... Your father -”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, Arlene!” boomed Lucinda Bagman, rattling her pockets excitedly. “They’re old enough to know what they want! You reckon Ireland will win but Krum’ll get the Snitch? Not a chance, girls, not a chance... I’ll give you excellent odds on that one... We’ll add five Galleons for the funny wand, then, shall we...”

Mrs. Prewett looked on helplessly as Lucinda Bagman whipped out a notebook and quill and began jotting down the twins’ names.

“Cheers,” said Georgina, taking the slip of parchment Bagman handed her and tucking it away into the front of her robes. Bagman turned most cheerfully back to Mrs. Prewett.

“Couldn’t do me a brew, I suppose? I’m keeping an eye out for Barby Crouch. My Bulgarian opposite number’s making difficulties, and I can’t understand a word she’s saying. Barby’ll be able to sort it out. She speaks about a hundred and fifty languages.”

“Mrs. Crouch?” said Penelope, suddenly abandoning her look of poker-stiff disapproval and positively writhing with excitement. “She speaks over two hundred! Mermish and Gobbledegook and Troll...”

“Anyone can speak Troll,” said Frankie dismissively. “All you have to do is point and grunt.”

Penelope threw Frankie an extremely nasty look and stoked the fire vigorously to bring the kettle back to the boil.

“Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Lucinda?” Mrs. Prewett asked as Bagman settled herself down on the grass beside them all.

“Not a dicky bird,” said Bagman comfortably. “But she’ll turn up. Poor old Bertha... memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She’ll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it’s still July.”

“You don’t think it might be time to send someone to look for her?” Mrs. Prewett suggested tentatively as Penelope handed Bagman her tea.

“Barby Crouch keeps saying that,” said Bagman, her round eyes widening innocently, “but we really can’t spare anyone at the moment. Oh - talk of the devil! Barby!”

A witch had just Apparated at their fireside, and she could not have made more of a contrast with Lucinda Bagman, sprawled on the grass in her old Wasp robes. Barby Crouch was a stiff, upright, elderly woman, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and tie. The parting in her short gray hair was almost unnaturally straight. Her shoes were very highly polished. Harriet could see at once why Penelope idolized her. Penelope was a great believer in rigidly following rules, and Mrs. Crouch had complied with the rule about Muggle dressing so thoroughly that she could have passed for a bank manager; Harriet doubted even Aunt Verona would have spotted her for what she really was.

“Pull up a bit of grass, Barby,” said Lucinda brightly, patting the ground beside her.

“No thank you, Lucinda,” said Crouch, and there was a bite of impatience in her voice. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box.”

“Oh is that what they’re after?” said Bagman. “I thought the chap was asking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent.”

“Mrs. Crouch!” said Penelope breathlessly, sunk into a kind of halfbow that made her look like a hunchback. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Crouch, looking over at Penelope in mild surprise. “Yes - thank you, Prescott.”

Frankie and Georgina choked into their own cups. Penelope, very pink around the ears, busied herself with the kettle.

“Oh and I’ve been wanting a word with you too, Arlene,” said Mrs. Crouch, her sharp eyes falling upon Mrs. Prewett. “Ali Bashir’s on the warpath. She wants a word with you about your embargo on flying carpets.”

Mrs. Prewett heaved a deep sigh.

“I sent her an owl about that just last week. If I’ve told her once I’ve told her a hundred times: Carpets are defined as a Muggle Artifact by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects, but will she listen?”

“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Crouch, accepting a cup from Penelope. “She’s desperate to export here.” 

“Well, they’ll never replace brooms in Britain, will they?” said Bagman.

“Ali thinks there’s a niche in the market for a family vehicle,” said Mrs. Crouch. “I remember my grandmother had an Axminster that could seat twelve - but that was before carpets were banned, of course.”

She spoke as though she wanted to leave nobody in any doubt that all her ancestors had abided strictly by the law.

“So, been keeping busy, Barby?” said Bagman breezily.

“Fairly,” said Mrs. Crouch dryly. “Organizing Portkeys across five continents is no mean feat, Lucinda.”

“I expect you’ll both be glad when this is over?” said Mrs. Prewett. Lucinda Bagman looked shocked.

“Glad! Don’t know when I’ve had more fun... Still, it’s not as though we haven’t got anything to took forward to, eh, Barby? Eh? Plenty left to organize, eh?”

Mrs. Crouch raised her eyebrows at Bagman.

“We agreed not to make the announcement until all the details -”

“Oh details!” said Bagman, waving the word away like a cloud of midges. “They’ve signed, haven’t they? They’ve agreed, haven’t they? I bet you anything these kids’ll know soon enough anyway. I mean, it’s happening at Hogwarts -”

“Lucinda, we need to meet the Bulgarians, you know,” said Mrs. Crouch sharply, cutting Bagman’s remarks short. “Thank you for the tea, Prescott.”

She pushed her undrunk tea back at Penelope and waited for Lucinda to rise; Bagman struggled to her feet, swigging down the last of her tea, the gold in her pockets chinking merrily.

“See you all later!” she said. “You’ll be up in the Top Box with me - I’m commentating!” She waved, Barby Crouch nodded curtly, and both of them Disapparated.

“What’s happening at Hogwarts, Mum?” said Frankie at once. “What were they talking about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Mrs. Prewett, smiling.

“It’s classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it,” said Penelope stiffly. “Mrs. Crouch was quite right not to disclose it.”

“Oh shut up, Prescott,” said Frankie.

A sense of excitement rose like a palpable cloud over the campsite as the afternoon wore on. By dusk, the still summer air itself seemed to be quivering with anticipation, and as darkness spread like a curtain over the thousands of waiting wizards, the last vestiges of pretence disappeared: the Ministry seemed to have bowed to the inevitable and stopped fighting the signs of blatant magic now breaking out everywhere.

Saleswomen were Apparating every few feet, carrying trays and pushing carts full of extraordinary merchandise. There were luminous rosettes - green for Ireland, red for Bulgaria - which were squealing the names of the players, pointed green hats bedecked with dancing shamrocks, Bulgarian scarves adorned with lions that really roared, flags from both countries that played their national anthems as they were waved; there were tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectible figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening themselves.

“Been saving my pocket money all summer for this,” Ronnie told Harriet as they and Hermes strolled through the saleswomen, buying souvenirs. Though Ronnie purchased a dancing shamrock hat and a large green rosette, she also bought a small figure of Viktoria Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker. The miniature Krum walked backward and forward over Ronnie’s hand, scowling up at the green rosette above her.

“Wow, look at these!” said Harriet, hurrying over to a cart piled high with what looked like brass binoculars, except that they were covered with all sorts of weird knobs and dials.

“Omnioculars,” said the saleswitch eagerly. “You can replay action... slow everything down... and they flash up a play-by- play breakdown if you need it. Bargain - ten Galleons each.”

“Wish I hadn’t bought this now,” said Ronnie, gesturing at her dancing shamrock hat and gazing longingly at the Omnioculars.

“Three pairs,” said Harriet firmly to the witch.

“No - don’t bother,” said Ronnie, going red. She was always touchy about the fact that Harriet, who had inherited a small fortune from her parents, had much more money than she did.

“You won’t be getting anything for Christmas,” Harriet told her, thrusting Omnioculars into hers and Hermes’ hands. “For about ten years, mind.”

“Fair enough,” said Ronnie, grinning.

“Oooh, thanks, Harriet,” said Hermes. “And I’ll get us some programs, look -”

Their money bags considerably lighter, they went back to the tents. Beth, Charlie, and Jerry were all sporting green rosettes too, and Mrs. Prewett was carrying an Irish flag. Frankie and Georgina had no souvenirs as they had given Bagman all their gold.

And then a deep, booming gong sounded somewhere beyond the woods, and at once, green and red lanterns blazed into life in the trees, lighting a path to the field.

“It’s time!” said Mrs. Prewett, looking as excited as any of them. “Come on, let’s go!”


	8. The Quidditch World Cup

Clutching their purchases, Mrs. Prewett in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, following the lantern-lit trail. They could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious; Harriet couldn’t stop grinning. They walked through the wood for twenty minutes, talking and joking loudly, until at last they emerged on the other side and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium. Though Harriet could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the field, she could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it.

“Seats a hundred thousand,” said Mrs. Prewett, spotting the awestruck look on Harriet’s face. “Ministry task force of five hundred have been working on it all year. Muggle Repelling Charms on every inch of it. Every time Muggles have got anywhere near here all year, they’ve suddenly remembered urgent appointments and had to dash away again... bless them,” she added fondly, leading the way toward the nearest entrance, which was already surrounded by a swarm of shouting witches and wizards.

“Prime seats!” said the Ministry witch at the entrance when she checked their tickets. “Top Box! Straight upstairs, Arlene, and as high as you can go.”

The stairs into the stadium were carpeted in rich purple. They clambered upward with the rest of the crowd, which slowly filtered away through doors into the stands to their left and right. Mrs. Prewett’s party kept climbing, and at last they reached the top of the staircase and found themselves in a small box, set at the highest point of the stadium and situated exactly halfway between the golden goal posts. About twenty purple-and-gilt chairs stood in two rows here, and Harriet, filing into the front seats with the Prewetts, looked down upon a scene the likes of which she could never have imagined.

A hundred thousand witches and wizards were taking their places in the seats, which rose in levels around the long oval field. Everything was suffused with a mysterious golden light, which seemed to come from the stadium itself. The field looked smooth as velvet from their lofty position. At either end of the field stood three goal hoops, fifty feet high; right opposite them, almost at Harriet’s eye level, was a gigantic blackboard. Gold writing kept dashing across it as though an invisible giant’s hand were scrawling upon the blackboard and then wiping it off again; watching it, Harriet saw that it was flashing advertisements across the field.

The Bluebottle: A Broom for All the Family - safe, reliable, and with Built-in Anti-Burgler Buzzer... Mr. Shower’s All Purpose Magical Mess Remover: No Pain, No Stain!... Gladrags Wizardwear - London, Paris, Hogsmeade...

Harriet tore her eyes away from the sign and looked over her shoulder to see who else was sharing the box with them. So far it was empty, except for a tiny creature sitting in the second from last seat at the end of the row behind them. The creature, whose legs were so short they stuck out in front of it on the chair, was wearing a tea towel draped like a toga, and it had its face hidden in its hands. Yet those long, batlike ears were oddly familiar...

“Dobby?” said Harriet incredulously.

The tiny creature looked up and stretched its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the exact size and shape of a large tomato. It wasn’t Dobby – it was, however, unmistakably a house-elf, as Harriet’s friend Dobby had been. Harriet had set Dobby free from her old owners, the Black family.

“Did ma’am just call me Dobby?” squeaked the elf curiously from between its fingers. Its voice was higher even than Dobby’s had been, a teeny, quivering squeak of a voice, and Harriet suspected though it was very hard to tell with a house-elf – that this one might just be female. Ronnie and Hermes spun around in their seats to look. Though they had heard a lot about Dobby from Harriet, they had never actually met her. Even Mrs. Prewett looked around in interest.

“Sorry,” Harriet told the elf, “I just thought you were someone I knew.”

“But I knows Dobby too, ma’am!” squeaked the elf. She was shielding her face, as though blinded by light, though the Top Box was not brightly lit. “My name is Winky, ma’am - and you, ma’am -” Her dark brown eyes widened to the size of side plates as they rested upon Harriet’s scar. “You is surely Harriet Evans!”

“Yeah, I am,” said Harriet.

“But Dobby talks of you all the time, ma’am!” she said, lowering her hands very slightly and looking awestruck.

“How is he?” said Harriet. “How’s freedom suiting him?”

“Ah, ma’am,” said Winky, shaking her head, “ah ma’am, meaning no disrespect, ma’am, but I is not sure you did Dobby a favor, ma’am, when you is setting him free.”

“Why?” said Harriet, taken aback. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Freedom is going to Dobby’s head, ma’am,” said Winky sadly. “Ideas above his station, ma’am. Can’t get another position, ma’am.”

“Why not?” said Harriet.

Winky lowered her voice by a half-octave and whispered, “He is wanting paying for his work, ma’am.”

“Paying?” said Harriet blankly. “Well - why shouldn’t he be paid?”

Winky looked quite horrified at the idea and closed her fingers slightly so that her face was half-hidden again.

“House-elves is not paid, ma’am!” she said in a muffled squeak. “No, no, no. I says to Dobby, I says, go find yourself a nice family and settle down, Dobby. He is getting up to all sorts of high jinks, ma’am, what is unbecoming to a house-elf. You goes racketing around like this, Dobby, I says, and next thing I hear you’s up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, like some common goblin.”

“Well, it’s about time he had a bit of fun,” said Harriet.

“House-elves is not supposed to have fun, Harriet Evans,” said Winky firmly, from behind her hands. “House-elves does what they is told. I is not liking heights at all, Harriet Evans” - she glanced toward the edge of the box and gulped - “but my mistress sends me to the Top Box and I comes, ma’am.”

“Why’s she sent you up here, if she knows you don’t like heights?” said Harriet, frowning.

“Mistress - mistress wants me to save her a seat, Harriet Evans. She is very busy,” said Winky, tilting her head toward the empty space beside her. “Winky is wishing she is back in mistress’s tent, Harriet Evans, but Winky does what she is told. Winky is a good house-elf.”

She gave the edge of the box another frightened look and hid her eyes completely again. Harriet turned back to the others.

“So that’s a house-elf?” Ronnie muttered. “Weird things, aren’t they?” 

“Dobby was weirder,” said Harriet fervently.

Ronnie pulled out her Omnioculars and started testing them, staring down into the crowd on the other side of the stadium.

“Wild!” she said, twiddling the replay knob on the side. “I can make that old bloke down there pick his nose again... and again... and again...”

Hermes, meanwhile, was skimming eagerly through his velvetcovered, tasseled program. “‘A display from the team mascots will precede the match,’” he read aloud.

“Oh that’s always worth watching,” said Mrs. Prewett. “National teams bring creatures from their native land, you know, to put on a bit of a show.”

The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mrs. Prewett kept shaking hands with people who were obviously very important wizards. Penelope jumped to her feet so often that she looked as though she were trying to sit on a hedgehog. When Cornetta Fudge, the Minister of Magic herself, arrived, Penelope bowed so low that her glasses fell off and shattered. Highly embarrassed, she repaired them with her wand and thereafter remained in her seat, throwing jealous looks at Harriet, whom Cornetta Fudge had greeted like an old friend. They had met before, and Fudge shook Harriet’s hand in a fatherly fashion, asked how she was, and introduced her to the witches on either side of her.

“Harriet Evans, you know,” she told the Bulgarian minister loudly, who was wearing splendid robes of black velvet trimmed with gold and didn’t seem to understand a word of English. “Harriet Evans... oh come on now, you know who she is... the girl who survived You-Know-Who... you do know who she is -”

The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harriet’s scar and started gabbling loudly and excitedly, pointing at it.

“Knew we’d get there in the end,” said Fudge wearily to Harriet. “I’m no great shakes at languages; I need Barby Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see her house-elf’s saving her a seat... Good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge all the best places... ah, and here’s Luanna!”

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes turned quickly. Edging along the second row to three still-empty seats right behind Mrs. Prewett were none other than Dobby the house-elf’s former owners: Luanna Black; her daughter, Dahlia; and a man Harriet supposed must be Dahlia’s father. Harriet and Dahlia Black had been enemies ever since their very first journey to Hogwarts. A pale girl with a pointed face and white-blond hair, Dahlia greatly resembled her mother. Her father was blonde too; tall and slim, he would have been nice-looking if he hadn’t been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under his nose.

“Ah, Fudge,” said Mrs. Black, holding out her hand as she reached the Minister of Magic. “How are you? I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Narcissus? Or our daughter, Dahlia?”

“How do you do, how do you do?” said Fudge, smiling and bowing to Mr. Black. “And allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Oblansk - Obalonsk - Mrs. - well, she’s the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and she can’t understand a word I’m saying anyway, so never mind. And let’s see who else - you know Arlene Prewett, I daresay?”

It was a tense moment. Mrs. Prewett and Mrs. Black looked at each other and Harriet vividly recalled the last time they had come face-to-face: It had been in Flourish and Blotts’ bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mrs. Black’s cold gray eyes swept over Mrs. Prewett, and then up and down the row.

“Good lord, Arlene,” she said softly. “What did you have to sell to get seats in the Top Box? Surely your house wouldn’t have fetched this much?”

Fudge, who wasn’t listening, said, “Luanna has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arlene. She’s here as my guest.”

“How - how nice,” said Mrs. Prewett, with a very strained smile.

Mrs. Black’s eyes had returned to Hermes, who went slightly pink, but stared determinedly back at her. Harriet knew exactly what was making Mrs. Black’s lip curl like that. The Blacks prided themselves on being purebloods; in other words, they considered anyone of Muggle descent, like Hermes, second-class. However, under the gaze of the Minister of Magic, Mrs. Black didn’t dare say anything. She nodded sneeringly to Mrs. Prewett and continued down the line to her seats. Dahlia shot Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes one contemptuous look, then settled herself between her mother and father.

“Slimy gits,” Ronnie muttered as she, Harriet, and Hermes turned to face the field again. Next moment, Lucinda Bagman charged into the box.

“Everyone ready?” she said, her round face gleaming like a great, excited Edam. “Minister - ready to go?”

“Ready when you are, Lucinda,” said Fudge comfortably.

Lucinda whipped out her wand, directed it at her own throat, and said “Sonorus!” and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; her voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands.

“Ladies and gentlemen... welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!”

The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket. The huge blackboard opposite them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans - A Risk With Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.

“And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce... the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!” The right-hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.

“I wonder what they’ve brought,” said Mrs. Prewett, leaning forward in her seat. “Aaah!” She suddenly whipped off her glasses and polished them hurriedly on her robes. “Veela!”

“What are veel -?”

But a hundred veela were now gliding out onto the field, and Harriet’s question was answered for her. Veela were men... the most beautiful men Harriet had ever seen... except that they weren’t - they couldn’t be - human. This puzzled Harriet for a moment while she tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could make their skin shine moon-bright like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind them without wind... but then the music started, and Harriet stopped worrying about them not being human - in fact, she stopped worrying about anything at all.

The veela had started to dance, and Harriet’s mind had gone completely and blissfully blank. All that mattered in the world was that she kept watching the veela, because if they stopped dancing, terrible things would happen.

And as the veela danced faster and faster, wild, half-formed thoughts started chasing through Harriet’s dazed mind. She wanted to do something very impressive, right now. Jumping from the box into the stadium seemed a good idea... but would it be good enough?

“Harriet, what are you doing?” said Hermes’ voice from a long way off.

The music stopped. Harriet blinked. She was standing up, and one of her legs was resting on the wall of the box. Next to her, Ronnie was frozen in an attitude that looked as though she were about to dive from a springboard.

Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn’t want the veela to go. Harriet was with them; she would, of course, be supporting Bulgaria, and she wondered vaguely why she had a large green shamrock pinned to her chest. Ronnie, meanwhile, was absentmindedly shredding the shamrocks on her hat. Mrs. Prewett, smiling slightly, leaned over to Ronnie and tugged the hat out of her hands.

“You’ll be wanting that,” she said, “once Ireland have had their say.”

“Huh?” said Ronnie, staring openmouthed at the veela, who had now lined up along one side of the field.

Hermes made a loud tutting noise. He reached up and pulled Harriet back into her seat. “Honestly!” he said.

“And now,” roared Lucinda Bagman’s voice, “kindly put your wands in the air... for the Irish National Team Mascots!”

Next moment, what seemed to be a great green-and-gold comet came zooming into the stadium. It did one circuit of the stadium, then split into two smaller comets, each hurtling toward the goal posts. A rainbow arced suddenly across the field, connecting the two balls of light. The crowd oooohed and aaaaahed, as though at a fireworks display. Now the rainbow faded and the balls of light reunited and merged; they had formed a great shimmering shamrock, which rose up into the sky and began to soar over the stands. Something like golden rain seemed to be falling from it – “Excellent!” yelled Ronnie as the shamrock soared over them, and heavy gold coins rained from it, bouncing off their heads and seats. Squinting up at the shamrock, Harriet realized that it was actually comprised of thousands of tiny little bearded men with red vests, each carrying a minute lamp of gold or green.

“Leprechauns!” said Mrs. Prewett over the tumultuous applause of the crowd, many of whom were still fighting and rummaging around under their chairs to retrieve the gold.

“There you go,” Ronnie yelled happily, stuffing a fistful of gold coins into Harriet’s hand, “for the Omnioculars! Now you’ve got to buy me a Christmas present, ha!”

The great shamrock dissolved, the leprechauns drifted down onto the field on the opposite side from the veela, and settled themselves cross-legged to watch the match.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, kindly welcome - the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team! I give you - Dimitrov!”

A scarlet-clad figure on a broomstick, moving so fast it was blurred, shot out onto the field from an entrance far below, to wild applause from the Bulgarian supporters.

“Ivanova!”

A second scarlet-robed player zoomed out.

“Zograf! Levski! Vulchanov! Volkov! Aaaaaaand - Krum!”

“That’s her, that’s her!” yelled Ronnie, following Krum with her Omnioculars. Harriet quickly focused her own.

Viktoria Krum was thin, dark, and sallow-skinned, with a large curved nose and thick black eyebrows. She looked like an overgrown bird of prey. It was hard to believe she was only eighteen.

“And now, please greet - the Irish National Quidditch Team!” yelled Bagman. “Presenting - Connolly! Ryan! Troy! Mullet! Moran! Quigley! Aaaaaand - Lynch!”

Seven green blurs swept onto the field; Harriet spun a small dial on the side of her Omnioculars and slowed the players down enough to read the word “Firebolt” on each of their brooms and see their names, embroidered in silver, upon their backs.

“And here, all the way from Egypt, our referee, acclaimed Chairwitch of the International Association of Quidditch, Hafsa Mostafa!”

A small and skinny witch, wearing robes of pure gold to match the stadium, strode out onto the field. A silver whistle was protruding from her mouth, and she was carrying a large wooden crate under one arm, her broomstick under the other.

Harriet spun the speed dial on her Omnioculars back to normal, watching closely as Mostafa mounted her broomstick and kicked the crate open - four balls burst into the air: the scarlet Quaffle, the two black Bludgers, and (Harriet saw it for the briefest moment, before it sped out of sight) the minuscule, winged Golden Snitch. With a sharp blast on her whistle, Mostafa shot into the air after the balls.

“Theeeeeeeey’re OFF!” screamed Bagman. “And it’s Mullet! Troy! Moran! Dimitrov! Back to Mullet! Troy! Levski! Moran!”

It was Quidditch as Harriet had never seen it played before. She was pressing her Omnioculars so hard to her glasses that they were cutting into the bridge of her nose. The speed of the players was incredible - the Chasers were throwing the Quaffle to one another so fast that Bagman only had time to say their names.

Harriet spun the slow dial on the right of her Omnioculars again, pressed the play by-play button on the top, and she was immediately watching in slow motion, while glittering purple lettering flashed across the lenses and the noise of the crowd pounded against her eardrums. HAWKSHEAD ATTACKING FORMATION, she read as she watched the three Irish Chasers zoom closely together, Troy in the center, slightly ahead of Mullet and Moran, bearing down upon the Bulgarians. PORSKOFF PLOY flashed up next, as Troy made as though to dart upward with the Quaffle, drawing away the Bulgarian Chaser Ivanova and dropping the Quaffle to Moran. One of the Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov, swung hard at a passing Bludger with his small club, knocking it into Moran’s path; Moran ducked to avoid the Bludger and dropped the Quaffle; and Levski, soaring beneath, caught it - “TROY SCORES!” roared Bagman, and the stadium shuddered with a roar of applause and cheers. “Ten zero to Ireland!”

“What?” Harriet yelled, looking wildly around through her Omnioculars. “But Levski’s got the Quaffle!”

“Harriet, if you’re not going to watch at normal speed, you’re going to miss things!” shouted Hermes, who was dancing up and down, waving his arms in the air while Troy did a lap of honor around the field. Harriet looked quickly over the top her his Omnioculars and saw that the leprechauns watching from the sidelines had all risen into the air again and formed the great, glittering shamrock. Across the field, the veela were watching them sulkily.  
Furious with herself, Harriet spun her speed dial back to normal as play resumed.

Harriet knew enough about Quidditch to see that the Irish Chasers were superb. They worked as a seamless team, their movements so well coordinated that they appeared to be reading one another’s minds as they positioned themselves, and the rosette on Harriet’s chest kept squeaking their names: “Troy - Mullet - Moran!” And within ten minutes, Ireland had scored twice more, bringing their lead to thirty-zero and causing a thunderous tide of roars and applause from the greenclad supporters.

The match became still faster, but more brutal. Volkov and Vulchanov, the Bulgarian Beaters, were whacking the Bludgers as fiercely as possible at the Irish Chasers, and were starting to prevent them from using some of their best moves; twice they were forced to scatter, and then, finally, Ivanova managed to break through their ranks; dodge the Keeper, Ryan; and score Bulgaria’s first goal.

“Fingers in your ears!” bellowed Mrs. Prewett as the veela started to dance in celebration. Harriet screwed up her eyes too; she wanted to keep her mind on the game. After a few seconds, she chanced a glance at the field. The veela had stopped dancing, and Bulgaria was again in possession of the Quaffle.

“Dimitrov! Levski! Dimitrov! Ivanova - oh I say!” roared Bagman. One hundred thousand wizards gasped as the two Seekers, Krum and Lynch, plummeted through the center of the Chasers, so fast that it looked as though they had just jumped from airplanes without parachutes. Harriet followed their descent through her Omnioculars, squinting to see where the Snitch was –

“They’re going to crash!” screamed Hermes next to Harriet.

He was half right - at the very last second, Viktoria Krum pulled out of the dive and spiraled off. Lynch, however, hit the ground with a dull thud that could be heard throughout the stadium. A huge groan rose from the Irish seats.

“Fool!” moaned Mrs. Prewett. “Krum was feinting!”

“It’s time-out!” yelled Bagman’s voice, “as trained mediwitches hurry onto the field to examine Aisling Lynch!”

“She’ll be okay, she only got ploughed!” Charlie said reassuringly to Jerry, who was hanging over the side of the box, looking horror-struck. “Which is what Krum was after, of course...”

Harriet hastily pressed the replay and play-by-play buttons on her Omnioculars, twiddled the speed dial, and put them back up to her eyes. She watched as Krum and Lynch dived again in slow motion. WRONSKI DEFENSIVE FEINT - DANGEROUS SEEKER DIVERSION read the shining purple lettering across her lenses. She saw Krum’s face contorted with concentration as she pulled out of the dive just in time, while Lynch was flattened, and she understood - Krum hadn’t seen the Snitch at all, she was just making Lynch copy her. Harriet had never seen anyone fly like that; Krum hardly looked as though she was using a broomstick at all; she moved so easily through the air that she looked unsupported and weightless. Harriet turned her Omnioculars back to normal and focused them on Krum. She was now circling high above Lynch, who was being revived by mediwizards with cups of potion. Harriet, focusing still more closely upon Krum’s face, saw her dark eyes darting all over the ground a hundred feet below. She was using the time while Lynch was revived to look for the Snitch without interference.

Lynch got to her feet at last, to loud cheers from the green-clad supporters, mounted her Firebolt, and kicked back off into the air. Her revival seemed to give Ireland new heart. When Mostafa blew her whistle again, the Chasers moved into action with a skill unrivaled by anything Harriet had seen so far.  
After fifteen more fast and furious minutes, Ireland had pulled ahead by ten more goals. They were now leading by one hundred and thirty points to ten, and the game was starting to get dirtier. As Mullet shot toward the goal posts yet again, clutching the Quaffle tightly under his arm, the Bulgarian Keeper, Zograf, flew out to meet him. Whatever happened was over so quickly Harriet didn’t catch it, but a scream of rage from the Irish crowd, and Mostafa’s long, shrill whistle blast, told her it had been a foul.

“And Mostafa takes the Bulgarian Keeper to task for cobbing — excessive use of elbows!” Bagman informed the roaring spectators. “And - yes, it’s a penalty to Ireland!”

The leprechauns, who had risen angrily into the air like a swarm of glittering hornets when Mullet had been fouled, now darted together to form the words “HA, HA, HA!” The veela on the other side of the field leapt to their feet, tossed their hair angrily, and started to dance again.

As one, the Prewett girls and Harriet stuffed their fingers into their ears, but Hermes, who hadn’t bothered, was soon tugging on Harriet’s arm. She turned to look at her, and he pulled her fingers impatiently out of her ears.

“Look at the referee!” he said, chuckling.

Harriet looked down at the field. Hafsa Mostafa had landed right in front of the dancing veela, and was acting very oddly indeed. She was flexing her muscles and twirling her hair excitedly.

“Now, we can’t have that!” said Lucinda Bagman, though she sounded highly amused. “Somebody slap the referee!”

A mediwitch came tearing across the field, her fingers stuffed into her own ears, and kicked Mostafa hard in the shins. Mostafa seemed to come to herself; Harriet, watching through the Omnioculars again, saw that she looked exceptionally embarrassed and had started shouting at the veela, who had stopped dancing and were looking mutinous.

“And unless I’m much mistaken, Mostafa is actually attempting to send off the Bulgarian team mascots!” said Bagman’s voice. “Now there’s something we haven’t seen before... Oh this could turn nasty...”

It did: The Bulgarian Beaters, Volkov and Vulchanov, landed on either side of Mostafa and began arguing furiously with her, gesticulating toward the leprechauns, who had now gleefully formed the words “HEE, HEE, HEE.” Mostafa was not impressed by the Bulgarians’ arguments, however; she was jabbing her finger into the air, clearly telling them to get flying again, and when they refused, she gave two short blasts on her whistle.

“Two penalties for Ireland!” shouted Bagman, and the Bulgarian crowd howled with anger. “And Volkov and Vulchanov had better get back on those brooms... yes... there they go... and Troy takes the Quaffle.” Play now reached a level of ferocity beyond anything they had yet seen. The Beaters on both sides were acting without mercy: Volkov and Vulchanov in particular seemed not to care whether their clubs made contact with Bludger or human as they swung them violently through the air. Dimitrov shot straight at Moran, who had the Quaffle, nearly knocking him off his broom.

“Foul!” roared the Irish supporters as one, all standing up in a great wave of green. 

“Foul!” echoed Lucinda’s magically magnified voice. “Dimitrov skins Moran - deliberately flying to collide there - and it’s got to be another penalty - yes, there’s the whistle!”

The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field. At this, the veela lost control. Instead of dancing, they launched themselves across the field and began throwing what seemed to be handfuls of fire at the leprechauns. Watching through her Omnioculars, Harriet saw that they didn’t look remotely beautiful now. On the contrary, their faces were elongating into sharp, cruelbeaked bird heads, and long, scaly wings were bursting from their shoulders -

“And that, girls,” yelled Mrs. Prewett over the tumult of the crowd below, “is why you should never go for looks alone!”

Ministry witches were flooding onto the field to separate the veela and the leprechauns, but with little success; meanwhile, the pitched battle below was nothing to the one taking place above. Harriet turned this way and that, staring through her Omnioculars, as the Quaffle changed hands with the speed of a bullet.

“Levski - Dimitrov - Moran - Troy - Mullet - Ivanova - Moran again - Moran - MORAN SCORES!”

But the cheers of the Irish supporters were barely heard over the shrieks of the veela, the blasts now issuing from the Ministry members’ wands, and the furious roars of the Bulgarians. The game recommenced immediately; now Levski had the Quaffle, now Dimitrov - The Irish Beater Quigley swung heavily at a passing Bludger, and hit it as hard as possible toward Krum, who did not duck quickly enough. It hit her full in the face.

There was a deafening groan from the crowd; Krum’s nose looked broken, there was blood everywhere, but Hafsa Mostafa didn’t blow her whistle. She had become distracted, and Harriet couldn’t blame her; one of the veela had thrown a handful of fire and set her broom tail alight. Harriet wanted someone to realize that Krum was injured; even though she was supporting Ireland, Krum was the most exciting player on the field. Ronnie obviously felt the same.

“Time-out! Ah, come on, she can’t play like that, look at her -” 

“Look at Lynch!” Harriet yelled.

For the Irish Seeker had suddenly gone into a dive, and Harriet was quite sure that this was no Wronski Feint; this was the real thing...

“She’s seen the Snitch!” Harriet shouted. “She’s seen it! Look at her go!” Half the crowd seemed to have realized what was happening; the Irish supporters rose in another great wave of green, screaming their Seeker on... but Krum was on her tail. How she could see where she was going, Harriet had no idea; there were flecks of blood flying through the air behind her, but she was drawing level with Lynch now as the pair of them hurtled toward the ground again -

“They’re going to crash!” shrieked Hermes.

“They’re not!” roared Ronnie.

“Lynch is!” yelled Harriet.

And she was right - for the second time, Lynch hit the ground with tremendous force and was immediately stampeded by a horde of angry veela.

“The Snitch, where’s the Snitch?” bellowed Charlie, along the row. 

“She’s got it - Krum’s got it - it’s all over!” shouted Harriet.

Krum, her red robes shining with blood from her nose, was rising gently into the air, her fist held high, a glint of gold in her hand.

The scoreboard was flashing BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170 across the crowd, who didn’t seem to have realized what had happened. Then, slowly, as though a great jumbo jet were revving up, the rumbling from the Ireland supporters grew louder and louder and erupted into screams of delight.

“IRELAND WINS!” Bagman shouted, who like the Irish, seemed to be taken aback by the sudden end of the match. “KRUM GETS THE SNITCH - BUT IRELAND WINS — good lord, I don’t think any of us were expecting that!”

“What did she catch the Snitch for?” Ronnie bellowed, even as she jumped up and down, applauding with her hands over her head. “She ended it when Ireland were a hundred and sixty points ahead, the idiot!”

“She knew they were never going to catch up!” Harriet shouted back over all the noise, also applauding loudly. “The Irish Chasers were too good... She wanted to end it on her terms, that’s all...”

“She was very brave, wasn’t she?” Hermes said, leaning forward to watch Krum land as a swarm of mediwitches blasted a path through the battling leprechauns and veela to get to him. “She looks a terrible mess...”

Harriet put her Omnioculars to her eyes again. It was hard to see what was happening below, because leprechauns were zooming delightedly all over the field, but she could just make out Krum, surrounded by mediwitches. She looked surlier than ever and refused to let them mop her up. Her team members were around her, shaking their heads and looking dejected; a short way away, the Irish players were dancing gleefully in a shower of gold descending from their mascots.

Flags were waving all over the stadium, the Irish national anthem blared from all sides; the veela were shrinking back into their usual, beautiful selves now, though looking dispirited and forlorn.

“Vell, ve fought bravely,” said a gloomy voice behind Harriet. She looked around; it was the Bulgarian Minister of Magic.

“You can speak English!” said Fudge, sounding outraged. “And you’ve been letting me mime everything all day!”

“Veil, it vos very funny,” said the Bulgarian minister, shrugging.

“And as the Irish team performs a lap of honor, flanked by their mascots, the Quidditch World Cup itself is brought into the Top Box!” roared Bagman.

Harriet’s eyes were suddenly dazzled by a blinding white light, as the Top Box was magically illuminated so that everyone in the stands could see the inside. Squinting toward the entrance, she saw two panting witches carrying a vast golden cup into the box, which they handed to Cornetta Fudge, who was still looking very disgruntled that she’d been using sign language all day for nothing.

“Let’s have a really loud hand for the gallant losers - Bulgaria!” Bagman shouted.

And up the stairs into the box came the seven defeated Bulgarian players. The crowd below was applauding appreciatively; Harriet could see thousands and thousands of Omniocular lenses flashing and winking in their direction.

One by one, the Bulgarians filed between the rows of seats in the box, and Bagman called out the name of each as they shook hands with their own minister and then with Fudge. Krum, who was last in line, looked a real mess. Two black eyes were blooming spectacularly on her bloody face. She was still holding the Snitch. Harriet noticed that she seemed much less coordinated on the ground. She was slightly duck-footed and distinctly round-shouldered. But when Krum’s name was announced, the whole stadium gave her a resounding, earsplitting roar.

And then came the Irish team. Aisling Lynch was being supported by Moran and Connolly; the second crash seemed to have dazed her and her eyes looked strangely unfocused. But she grinned happily as Troy and Quigley lifted the Cup into the air and the crowd below thundered its approval. Harriet’s hands were numb with clapping.

At last, when the Irish team had left the box to perform another lap of honor on their brooms (Aisling Lynch on the back of Connolly’s, clutching hard around her waist and still grinning in a bemused sort of way), Bagman pointed her wand at her throat and muttered, “Quietus.”

“They’ll be talking about this one for years,” she said hoarsely, “a really unexpected twist, that... shame it couldn’t have lasted longer... Ah yes... yes, I owe you... how much?”

For Frankie and Georgina had just scrambled over the backs of their seats and were standing in front of Lucinda Bagman with broad grins on their faces, their hands outstretched.


	9. The Dark Mark

“Don’t tell your father you’ve been gambling,” Mrs. Prewett implored Frankie and Georgina as they all made their way slowly down the purple-carpeted stairs.

“Don’t worry, Mum,” said Frankie gleefully, “we’ve got big plans for this money. We don’t want it confiscated.”

Mrs. Prewett looked for a moment as though she was going to ask what these big plans were, but seemed to decide, upon reflection, that she didn’t want to know.

They were soon caught up in the crowds now flooding out of the stadium and back to their campsites. Raucous singing was borne toward them on the night air as they retraced their steps along the lantern-lit path, and leprechauns kept shooting over their heads, cackling and waving their lanterns. When they finally reached the tents, nobody felt like sleeping at all, and given the level of noise around them, Mrs. Prewett agreed that they could all have one last cup of cocoa together before turning in. They were soon arguing enjoyably about the match; Mrs. Prewett got drawn into a disagreement about cobbing with Charlie, and it was only when Jerry fell asleep right at the tiny table and spilled hot chocolate all over the floor that Mrs. Prewett called a halt to the verbal replays and insisted that everyone go to bed. Hermes and Jerry went into the next tent, and Harriet and the rest of the Prewetts changed into pajamas and clambered into their bunks. From the other side of the campsite they could still hear much singing and the odd echoing bang.

“Oh I am glad I’m not on duty,” muttered Mrs. Prewett sleepily. “I wouldn’t fancy having to go and tell the Irish they’ve got to stop celebrating.”

Harriet, who was on a top bunk above Ronnie, lay staring up at the canvas ceiling of the tent, watching the glow of an occasional leprechaun lantern flying overhead, and picturing again some of Krum’s more spectacular moves. She was itching to get back on her own Firebolt and try out the Wronski Feint... Somehow Olivia Wood had never managed to convey with all her wriggling diagrams what that move was supposed to look like... Harriet saw herself in robes that had her name on the back, and imagined the sensation of hearing a hundred-thousand-strong crowd roar, as Lucinda Bagman’s voice echoed throughout the stadium, “I give you... Evans!”

Harriet never knew whether or not she had actually dropped off to sleep – her fantasies of flying like Krum might well have slipped into actual dreams - all she knew was that, quite suddenly, Mrs. Prewett was shouting.

“Get up! Ronnie - Harriet - come on now, get up, this is urgent!” Harriet sat up quickly and the top of her head hit canvas.

“S’ matter?” She said.

Dimly, she could tell that something was wrong. The noises in the campsite had changed. The singing had stopped. She could hear screams, and the sound of people running. She slipped down from the bunk and reached for her clothes, but Mrs. Prewett, who had pulled on her jeans over her own pajamas, said, “No time, Harriet - just grab a jacket and get outside - quickly!”

Harriet did as she was told and hurried out of the tent, Ronnie at her heels. By the light of the few fires that were still burning, she could see people running away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire.

Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene. A crowd of witches, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Harriet squinted at them... They didn’t seem to have faces... Then she realized that their heads were hooded and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked witches on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air.

Two of the figures were very small. More witches were joining the marching group, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once or twice Harriet saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of her way with her wand. Several caught fire. The screaming grew louder.

The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed over a burning tent and Harriet recognized one of them: Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager. The other three looked as though they might be his wife and children. One of the marchers below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside down with her wand; her nightdress fell down to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd below her screeched and hooted with glee.

“That’s sick,” Ronnie muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, her head flopping limply from side to side. “That is really sick...”

Hermes and Jerry came hurrying toward them, pulling coats over their pajamas, with Mrs. Prewett right behind them. At the same moment, Beth, Charlie, and Penelope emerged from the girls’ tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.

“We’re going to help the Ministry!” Mrs. Prewett shouted over all the noise, rolling up her own sleeves. “You lot - get into the woods, and stick together. I’ll come and fetch you when we’ve sorted this out!”

Beth, Charlie, and Penelope were already sprinting away toward the oncoming marchers; Mrs. Prewett tore after them. Ministry witches were dashing from every direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was coming ever closer.

“C’mon,” said Frankie, grabbing Jerry’s hand and starting to pull him toward the wood. Harriet, Ronnie, Hermes, and Georgina followed. They all looked back as they reached the trees. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was larger than ever; they could see the Ministry witches trying to get through it to the hooded witches in the center, but they were having great difficulty. It looked as though they were scared to perform any spell that might make the Roberts family fall.

The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished. Dark figures were blundering through the trees; children were crying; anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air.

Harriet felt herself being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces she could not see. Then she heard Ronnie yell with pain.

“What happened?” said Hermes anxiously, stopping so abruptly that Harriet walked into her. “Ronnie, where are you? Oh this is stupid - lumos!”

He illuminated his wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ronnie was lying sprawled on the ground.

“Tripped over a tree root,” she said angrily, getting to her feet again.

“Well, with feet that size, hard not to,” said a drawling voice from behind them.

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes turned sharply. Dahlia Black was standing alone nearby, leaning against a tree, looking utterly relaxed. Her arms folded, she seemed to have been watching the scene at the campsite through a gap in the trees. Ronnie told Black to do something that Harriet knew she would never have dared say in front of Mr. Prewett.

“Language, Prewett,” said Black, her pale eyes glittering. “Hadn’t you better be hurrying along, now? You wouldn’t like him spotted, would you?”

She nodded at Hermes, and at the same moment, a blast like a bomb sounded from the campsite, and a flash of green light momentarily lit the trees around them.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Hermes defiantly.

“Granger, they’re after Muggles,” said Black. “D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around... they’re moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh.”

“Hermes is a wizard,” Harriet snarled.

“Have it your own way, Evans,” said Black, grinning maliciously. “If you think they can’t spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.”

“You watch your mouth!” shouted Ronnie. Everybody present knew that “Mudblood” was a very offensive term for a witch or wizard of Muggle parentage.

“Never mind, Ronnie,” said Hermes quickly, seizing Ronnie’s arm to restrain her as she took a step toward Black. There came a bang from the other side of the trees that was louder than anything they had heard several people nearby screamed. Black chuckled softly.

“Scare easily, don’t they?” she said lazily. “I suppose your mummy told you all to hide? What’s she up to - trying to rescue the Muggles?”

“Where’re your parents?” said Harriet, her temper rising. “Out there wearing masks, are they?” Black turned her face to Harriet, still smiling.

“Well... if they were, I wouldn’t be likely to tell you, would I, Evans?”

“Oh come on,” said Hermes, with a disgusted look at Black, “let’s go and find the others.” 

“Keep that big bushy head down, Granger,” sneered Black.

“Come on,” Hermes repeated, and he pulled Harriet and Ronnie up the path again. “I’ll bet you anything his dad is one of that masked lot!” said Ronnie hotly.

“Well, with any luck, the Ministry will catch her!” said Hermes fervently. “Oh I can’t believe this. Where have the others got to?”

Frankie, Georgina, and Jerry were nowhere to be seen, though the path was packed with plenty of other people, all looking nervously over their shoulders toward the commotion back at the campsite. A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing vociferously a little way along the path. When they saw Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, “Oü est Monsieur Maxime? Nous l’avons perdue -” 

“Er - what?” said Ronnie.

“Oh...” The girl who had spoken turned her back on her, and as they walked on they distinctly heard her say, “Ogwarts.”

“Beauxbatons,” muttered Hermes. 

“Sorry?” said Harriet.

“They must go to Beauxbatons,” said Hermes. “You know... Beauxbatons Academy of Magic... I read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe.”

“Oh... yeah... right,” said Harriet.

“Frankie and Georgina can’t have gone that far,” said Ronnie, pulling out her wand, lighting it like Hermes’, and squinting up the path. Harriet dug in the pockets of her jacket for her own wand - but it wasn’t there. The only thing she could find was her Omnioculars.

“Ah, no, I don’t believe it... I’ve lost my wand!”

“You’re kidding!”

Ronnie and Hermes raised their wands high enough to spread the narrow beams of light farther on the ground; Harriet looked all around her, but her wand was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe it’s back in the tent,” said Ronnie.

“Maybe it fell out of your pocket when we were running?” Hermes suggested anxiously. 

“Yeah,” said Harriet, “maybe...”

She usually kept her wand with her at all times in the wizarding world, and finding herself without it in the midst of a scene like this made her feel very vulnerable. A rustling noise nearby made all three of them jump. Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone invisible were trying to hold her back.

“There is bad wizards about!” she squeaked distractedly as she leaned forward and labored to keep running. “People high - high in the air! Winky is getting out of the way!”

And she disappeared into the trees on the other side of the path, panting and squeaking as she fought the force that was restraining her.

“What’s up with her?” said Ronnie, looking curiously after Winky. “Why can’t she run properly?”

“Bet she didn’t ask permission to hide,” said Harriet. She was thinking of Dobby: Every time he had tried to do something the Blacks wouldn’t like, the house-elf had been forced to start beating himself up.

“You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!” said Hermes indignantly. “It’s slavery, that’s what it is! That Mrs. Crouch made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and she’s got her bewitched so she can’t even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?”

“Well, the elves are happy, aren’t they?” Ronnie said. “You heard old Winky back at the match... ‘House-elves is not supposed to have fun’... that’s what she likes, being bossed around...”

“It’s people like you, Ronnie,” Hermes began hotly, “who prop up rotten and unjust systems, just because they’re too lazy to -”

Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.

“Let’s just keep moving, shall we?” said Ronnie, and Harriet saw her glance edgily at Hermes. Perhaps there was truth in what Black had said; perhaps Hermes was in more danger than they were. They set off again, Harriet still searching her pockets, even though she knew her wand wasn’t there.

They followed the dark path deeper into the wood, still keeping an eye out for Frankie, Georgina, and Jerry. They passed a group of goblins who were cackling over a sack of gold that they had undoubtedly won betting on the match, and who seemed quite unperturbed by the trouble at the campsite. Farther still along the path, they walked into a patch of silvery light, and when they looked through the trees, they saw three tall and beautiful veela standing in a clearing, surrounded by a gaggle of young witches, all of whom were talking very loudly.

“I pull down about a hundred sacks of Galleons a year!” one of them shouted. “I’m a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.”

“No, you’re not!” yelled her friend. “You’re a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron... but I’m a vampire hunter, I’ve killed about ninety so far -”

A third young witch, whose pimples were visible even by the dim, silvery light of the veela, now cut in, “I’m about to become the youngest ever Minister of Magic, I am.”

Harriet snorted with laughter. She recognized the pimply wizard: Her name was Stella Shunpike, and she was in fact a conductor on the triple-decker Knight Bus. She turned to tell Ronnie this, but Ronnie’s face had gone oddly slack, and next second Ronnie was yelling, “Did I tell you I’ve invented a broomstick that’ll reach Jupiter?”

“Honestly!” said Hermes, and he and Harriet grabbed Ronnie firmly by the arms, wheeled her around, and marched her away. By the time the sounds of the veela and their admirers had faded completely, they were in the very heart of the wood. They seemed to be alone now; everything was much quieter.

Harriet looked around. “I reckon we can just wait here, you know. We’ll hear anyone coming a mile off.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Lucinda Bagman emerged from behind a tree right ahead of them.

Even by the feeble light of the two wands, Harriet could see that a great change had come over Bagman. She no longer looked buoyant and rosy-faced; there was no more spring in her step. She looked very white and strained.

“Who’s that?” she said, blinking down at them, trying to make out their faces. “What are you doing in here, all alone?”

They looked at one another, surprised.

“Well - there’s a sort of riot going on,” said Ronnie.

Bagman stared at her.

“What?”

“At the campsite... some people have got hold of a family of Muggles...”

Bagman swore loudly.

“Damn them!” she said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, she Disapparated with a small pop!

“Not exactly on top of things, Mrs. Bagman, is she?” said Hermes, frowning.

“She was a great Beater, though,” said Ronnie, leading the way off the path into a small clearing, and sitting down on a patch of dry grass at the foot of a tree. “The Wimbourne Wasps won the league three times in a row while she was with them.”

She took her small figure of Krum out of her pocket, set it down on the ground, and watched it walk around. Like the real Krum, the model was slightly duck-footed and round-shouldered, much less impressive on her splayed feet than on her broomstick. Harriet was listening for noise from the campsite. Everything seemed much quieter; perhaps the riot was over.

“I hope the others are okay,” said Hermes after a while. 

“They’ll be fine,” said Ronnie.

“Imagine if your mum catches Luanna Black,” said Harriet, sitting down next to Ronnie and watching the small figure of Krum slouching over the fallen leaves. “She’s always said she’d like to get something on her.”

“That’d wipe the smirk off old Dahlia’s face, all right,” said Ronnie.

“Those poor Muggles, though,” said Hermes nervously. “What if they can’t get them down?” 

“They will,” said Ronnie reassuringly. “They’ll find a way.”

“Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic’s out here tonight!” said Hermes. “I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they’ve been drinking, or are they just -”

But he broke off abruptly and looked over his shoulder. Harriet and Ronnie looked quickly around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward their clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.

“Hello?” called Harriet.

There was silence. Harriet got to her feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but she could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of her vision.

“Who’s there?” she said.

And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.

“MORSMORDRE!”

And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness Harriet’s eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky.

“What the -?” gasped Ronnie as she sprang to her feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared.

For a split second, Harriet thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then she realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.

Suddenly, the wood all around them erupted with screams. Harriet didn’t understand why, but the only possible cause was the sudden appearance of the skull, which had now risen high enough to illuminate the entire wood like some grisly neon sign. She scanned the darkness for the person who had conjured the skull, but she couldn’t see anyone.

“Who’s there?” she called again.

“Harriet, come on, move!” Hermes had seized the collar of her jacket and was tugging her backward.

“What’s the matter?” Harriet said, startled to see his face so white and terrified.

“It’s the Dark Mark, Harriet!” Hermes said, pulling her as hard as he could. “You-Know- Who’s sign!”

“Voldemort’s -“

“Harriet, come on!”

Harriet turned - Ronnie was hurriedly scooping up her miniature Krum - the three of them started across the clearing - but before they had taken a few hurried steps, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty witches, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.

Harriet whirled around, and in an instant, she registered one fact: Each of these witches had her wand out, and every wand was pointing right at herself, Ronnoe, and Hermes.

Without pausing to think, she yelled, “DUCK!”

She seized the other two and pulled them down onto the ground.

“STUPEFY!” roared twenty voices - there was a blinding series of flashes and Harriet felt the hair on her head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Raising her head a fraction of an inch she saw jets of fiery red light flying over them from the witches’ wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness—

“Stop!” yelled a voice she recognized. “STOP! That’s my daughter!”

Harriet’s hair stopped blowing about. She raised her head a little higher. The witch in front of her had lowered her wand. She rolled over and saw Mrs. Prewett striding toward them, looking terrified.

“Ronnie - Harriet” - her voice sounded shaky - “Hermes - are you all right?” 

“Out of the way, Arlene,” said a cold, curt voice.

It was Mrs. Crouch. She and the other Ministry witches were closing in on them. Harriet got to her feet to face them. Mrs. Crouch’s face was taut with rage.

“Which of you did it?” she snapped, her sharp eyes darting between them. “Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?”

“We didn’t do that!” said Harriet, gesturing up at the skull.

“We didn’t do anything!” said Ronnie, who was rubbing her elbow and looking indignantly at her mother. “What did you want to attack us for?”

“Do not lie, miss!” shouted Mrs. Crouch. Her wand was still pointing directly at Ronnie, and her eyes were popping - she looked slightly mad. “You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!”

“Barby,” whispered a wizard in a long woolen dressing gown, “they’re kids, Barby, they’d never have been able to.”

“Where did the Mark come from, you three?” said Mrs. Prewett quickly.

“Over there,” said Hermes shakily, pointing at the place where they had heard the voice. “There was someone behind the trees... they shouted words – an incantation -”

“Oh, stood over there, did they?” said Mrs. Crouch, turning her popping eyes on Hermes now, disbelief etched all over her face. “Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, sir -”

But none of the Ministry witches apart from Mrs. Crouch seemed to think it remotely likely that Harriet, Ronnie, or Hermes had conjured the skull; on the contrary, at Hermes’ words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction he had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.

“We’re too late,” said the wizard in the woolen dressing gown, shaking his head. “They’ll have Disapparated.”

“I don’t think so,” said a witch with a scrubby brown beard. It was Amy Diggory, Celia’s mother. “Our Stunners went right through those trees... There’s a good chance we got them...”

“Amy, be careful!” said a few of the witches warningly as Mrs. Diggory squared her shoulders, raised her wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into the darkness. Hermes watched her vanish with his hands over his mouth. A few seconds later, they heard Mrs. Diggory shout.

“Yes! We got them! There’s someone here! Unconscious! It’s - but - blimey..”

“You’ve got someone?” shouted Mrs. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. “Who? Who is it?”

They heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mrs. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. She was carrying a tiny, limp figure in her arms. Harriet recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky. Mrs. Crouch did not move or speak as Mrs. Diggory deposited her elf on the ground at her feet. The other Ministry wizards were all staring at Mrs. Crouch. For a few seconds Crouch remained transfixed, her eyes blazing in her white face as she stared down at Winky. Then she appeared to come to life again.

“This - cannot - be,” she said jerkily. “No -”

She moved quickly around Mrs. Diggory and strode off toward the place where she had found Winky.

“No point, Mrs. Crouch,” Mrs. Diggory called after her. “There’s no one else there.”

But Mrs. Crouch did not seem prepared to take her word for it. They could hear her moving around and the rustling of leaves as she pushed the bushes aside, searching.

“Bit embarrassing,” Mrs. Diggory said grimly, looking down at Winky’s unconscious form. “Barby Crouch’s house-elf... I mean to say...”

“Come off it, Amy,” said Mrs. Prewett quietly, “you don’t seriously think it was the elf? The Dark Mark’s a wizard’s sign. It requires a wand.”

“Yeah,” said Mrs. Diggory, “and she had a wand.” 

“What?” said Mrs. Prewett.

“Here, look.” Mrs. Diggory held up a wand and showed it to Mrs. Prewett. “Had it in her hand. So that’s clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand.”

Just then there was another pop, and Lucinda Bagman Apparated right next to Mrs. Prewett. Looking breathless and disorientated, she spun on the spot, goggling upward at the emerald-green skull.

“The Dark Mark!” she panted, almost trampling Winky as she turned inquiringly to her colleagues. “Who did it? Did you get them? Barby! What’s going on?”

Mrs. Crouch had returned empty-handed. Her face was still ghostly white, and her hands were twitching.

“Where have you been, Barby?” said Bagman. “Why weren’t you at the match? Your elf was saving you a seat too - gulping gargoyles!” Bagman had just noticed Winky lying at her feet. “What happened to her?”

“I have been busy, Lucinda,” said Mrs. Crouch, still talking in the same jerky fashion, barely moving her lips. “And my elf has been stunned.”

“Stunned? By you lot, you mean? But why -?”

Comprehension dawned suddenly on Bagman’s round, shiny face; she looked up at the skull, down at Winky, and then at Mrs. Crouch.

“No!” she said. “Winky? Conjure the Dark Mark? She wouldn’t know how! She’d need a wand, for a start!”

“And she had one,” said Mrs. Diggory. “I found her holding one, Lucinda. If it’s all right with you, Mrs. Crouch, I think we should hear what she’s got to say for herself.”

Crouch gave no sign that she had heard Mrs. Diggory, but Mrs. Diggory seemed to take her silence for assent. She raised her own wand, pointed it at Winky, and said, “Ennervate!”

Winky stirred feebly. Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times in a bemused sort of way. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily into a sitting position. She caught sight of Mrs. Diggory’s feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to stare up into her face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. Harriet could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. She gave a gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs.

“Elf!” said Mrs. Diggory sternly. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!”

Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in sharp bursts. Harriet was reminded forcibly of Dobby in his moments of terrified disobedience.

“As you see, elf, the Dark Mark was conjured here a short while ago,” said Mrs. Diggory. “And you were discovered moments later, right beneath it! An explanation, if you please!”

“I - I - I is not doing it, ma’am!” Winky gasped. “I is not knowing how, ma’am!”

“You were found with a wand in your hand!” barked Mrs. Diggory, brandishing it in front of her. And as the wand caught the green light that was filling the clearing from the skull above, Harriet recognized it.

“Hey - that’s mine!” she said

Everyone in the clearing looked at her.

“Excuse me?” said Mrs. Diggory, incredulously.

“That’s my wand!” said Harriet. “I dropped it!”

“You dropped it?” repeated Mrs. Diggory in disbelief. “Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?”

“Amy, think who you’re talking to!” said Mrs. Crouch, very angrily. “Is Harriet Evans likely to conjure the Dark Mark?”

“Er - of course not,” mumbled Mrs. Diggory. “Sorry... carried away...”

“I didn’t drop it there, anyway,” said Harriet, jerking her thumb toward the trees beneath the skull. “I missed it right after we got into the wood.”

“So,” said Mrs. Diggory, her eyes hardening as she turned to look at Winky again, cowering at her feet. “You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you’d have some fun with it, did you?”

“I is not doing magic with it, ma’am!” squealed Winky, tears streaming down the sides of her squashed and bulbous nose. “I is... I is... I is just picking it up, ma’am! I is not making the Dark Mark, ma’am, I is not knowing how!”

“It wasn’t her!” said Hermes. He looked very nervous, speaking up in front of all these Ministry witches, yet determined all the same. “Winky’s got a squeaky little voice, and the voice we heard doing the incantation was much deeper!” He looked around at Harriet and Ronnie, appealing for their support. “It didn’t sound anything like Winky, did it?”

“No,” said Harriet, shaking her head. “It definitely didn’t sound like an elf.” 

“Yeah, it was a human voice,” said Ronnie.

“Well, we’ll soon see,” growled Mrs. Diggory, looking unimpressed. “There’s a simple way of discovering the last spell a wand performed, elf, did you know that?”

Winky trembled and shook her head frantically, her ears flapping, as Mrs. Diggory raised her own wand again and placed it tip to tip with Harriet’s.

“Prior Incantato!” roared Mrs. Diggory.

Harriet heard Hermes gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the ghost of a spell.

“Deletrius!” Mrs. Diggory shouted, and the smoky skull vanished in a wisp of smoke.

“So,” said Mrs. Diggory with a kind of savage triumph, looking down upon Winky, who was still shaking convulsively.

“I is not doing it!” she squealed, her eyes rolling in terror. “I is not, I is not, I is not knowing how! I is a good elf, I isn’t using wands, I isn’t knowing how!”

“You’ve been caught red-handed, elf!” Mrs. Diggory roared. “Caught with the guilty wand in your hand!”

“Amy,” said Mrs. Prewett loudly, “think about it... precious few witches know how to do that spell... Where would she have learned it?”

“Perhaps Amy is suggesting,” said Mrs. Crouch, cold anger in every syllable, “that I routinely teach my servants to conjure the Dark Mark?”

There was a deeply unpleasant silence. Amy Diggory looked horrified. “Mrs. Crouch... not... not at all.”

“You have now come very close to accusing the two people in this clearing who are least likely to conjure that Mark!” barked Mrs. Crouch. “Harriet Evans – and myself. I suppose you are familiar with the girl’s story, Amy?”

“Of course - everyone knows -” muttered Mrs. Diggory, looking highly discomforted.

“And I trust you remember the many proofs I have given, over a long career, that I despise and detest the Dark Arts and those who practice them?” Mrs. Crouch shouted, her eyes bulging again.

“Mrs. Crouch, I - I never suggested you had anything to do with it!” Amy Diggory muttered again, now reddening.

“If you accuse my elf, you accuse me, Diggory!” shouted Mrs. Crouch. “Where else would she have learned to conjure it?”

“She - she might’ve picked it up anywhere -”

“Precisely, Amy,” said Mrs. Weasley. “She might have picked it up anywhere... Winky?” she said kindly, turning to the elf, but she flinched as though she too was shouting at her. “Where exactly did you find Harriet’s wand?”

Winky was twisting the hem of her tea towel so violently that it was fraying beneath her fingers. “I - I is finding it... finding it there, ma’am...” she whispered, “there... in the trees, ma’am.

“You see, Amy?” said Mrs. Prewett. “Whoever conjured the Mark could have Disapparated right after they’d done it, leaving Harriet’s wand behind. A clever thing to do, not using their own wand, which could have betrayed them. And Winky here had the misfortune to come across the wand moments later and pick it up.”

“But then, she’d have been only a few feet away from the real culprit!” said Mrs. Diggory impatiently. “Elf? Did you see anyone?”

Winky began to tremble worse than ever. Her giant eyes flickered from Mrs. Diggory, to Lucinda Bagman, and onto Mrs. Crouch. Then she gulped and said, “I is seeing no one, ma’am... no one...”

“Amy,” said Mrs. Crouch curtly, “I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her.”

Mrs. Diggory looked as though she didn’t think much of this suggestion at all, but it was clear to Harriet that Mrs. Crouch was such an important member of the Ministry that she did not dare refuse her.

“You may rest assured that she will be punished,” Mrs. Crouch added coldly.

“M-m-mistress...” Winky stammered, looking up at Mrs. Crouch, her eyes brimming with tears. “M-m-mistress, p-p-please...”

Mrs. Crouch stared back, her face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more deeply etched. There was no pity in her gaze.

“Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible,” she said slowly. “I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes.”

“No!” shrieked Winky, prostrating herself at Mrs. Crouch’s feet. “No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!”

Harriet knew that the only way to turn a house-elf free was to present it with proper garments. It was pitiful to see the way Winky clutched at her tea towel as she sobbed over Mrs. Crouch’s feet.

“But she was frightened!” Hermes burst out angrily, glaring at Mrs. Crouch. “Your elf’s scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can’t blame her for wanting to get out of their way!”

Mrs. Crouch took a step backward, freeing herself from contact with the elf, whom she was surveying as though she were something filthy and rotten that was contaminating her over-shined shoes.

“I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me,” she said coldly, looking over at Hermes. “I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her mistress, and to her mistress’s reputation.”

Winky was crying so hard that her sobs echoed around the clearing. There was a very nasty silence, which was ended by Mrs. Prewett, who said quietly, “Well, I think I’ll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody’s got any objections. Amy, that wand’s told us all it can - if Harriet could have it back, please -”

Mrs. Diggory handed Harriet her wand and Harriet pocketed it.

“Come on, you three,” Mrs. Prewett said quietly. But Hermes didn’t seem to want to move; his eyes were still upon the sobbing elf. “Hermes!” Mrs. Prewett said, more urgently. He turned and followed Harriet and Ronnie out of the clearing and off through the trees.

“What’s going to happen to Winky?” said Hermes, the moment they had left the clearing. 

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Prewett.

“The way they were treating her!” said Hermes furiously. “Mrs. Diggory, calling her ‘elf’ all the time... and Mrs. Crouch! She knows she didn’t do it and she’s still going to sack her! She didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was - it was like she wasn’t even human!”

“Well, she’s not,” said Ronnie.

Hermes rounded on her.

“That doesn’t mean she hasn’t got feelings, Ronnie. It’s disgusting the way -”

“Hermes, I agree with you,” said Mrs. Prewett quickly, beckoning him on, “but now is not the time to discuss elf rights. I want to get back to the tent as fast as we can. What happened to the others?”

“We lost them in the dark,” said Ronnie. “Mum, why was everyone so uptight about that skull thing?”

“I’ll explain everything back at the tent,” said Mrs. Prewett tensely.

But when they reached the edge of the wood, their progress was impeded. A large crowd of frightened-looking witches and wizards was congregated there, and when they saw Mrs. Prewett coming toward them, many of them surged forward.

“What’s going on in there?”

“Who conjured it?”

“Arlene - it’s not - Him?”

“Of course it’s not Him,” said Mrs. Prewett impatiently. “We don’t know who it was; it looks like they Disapparated. Now excuse me, please, I want to get to bed.”

She led Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes through the crowd and back into the campsite.

All was quiet now; there was no sign of the masked witches, though several ruined tents were still smoking.

Charlie’s head was poking out of the girls’ tent.

“Mum, what’s going on?” she called through the dark. “Frankie, Georgina, and Jerry got back okay, but the others -”

“I’ve got them here,” said Mrs. Prewett, bending down and entering the tent. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes entered after her.

Beth was sitting at the small kitchen table, holding a bedsheet to her arm, which was bleeding profusely. Charlie had a large rip in her shirt, and Penelope was sporting a bloody nose. Frankie, Georgina, and Jerry looked unhurt, though shaken.

“Did you get them, Mum?” said Beth sharply. “The person who conjured the Mark?”

“No,” said Mrs. Prewett. “We found Barby Crouch’s elf holding Harriet’s wand, but we’re none the wiser about who actually conured the Mark.”

“What?” said Beth, Charlie, and Penelope together. 

“Harriet’s wand?” said Frankie.

“Mrs. Crouch’s elf” said Penelope, sounding thunderstruck.

With some assistance from Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, Mrs. Prewett explained what had happened in the woods. When they had finished their story, Penelope swelled indignantly.

“Well, Mrs. Crouch is quite right to get rid of an elf like that!” she said. “Running away when she’d expressly told her not to... embarrassing her in front of the whole Ministry... how would that have looked, if she’d been brought up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control”

“She didn’t do anything - she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!” Hermes snapped at Penelope, who looked very taken aback. Hermes had always got on fairly well with Penelope - better, indeed, than any of the others.

“Hermes, a witch in Mrs. Crouch’s position can’t afford a house-elf who’s going to run amok with a wand!” said Penelope pompously, recovering herself.

“She didn’t run amok!” shouted Hermes. “She just picked it up off the ground!”

“Look, can someone just explain what that skull thing was?” said Ronnie impatiently. “It wasn’t hurting anyone... Why’s it such a big deal?”

“I told you, it’s You-Know-Who’s symbol, Ronnie,” said Hermes, before anyone else could answer. “I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.”

“And it hasn’t been seen for thirteen years,” said Mrs. Prewett quietly. “Of course people panicked... it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again.”

“I don’t get it,” said Ronnie, frowning. “I mean... it’s still only a shape in the sky...”

“Ronnie, You-Know-Who and her followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed,” said Mrs. Prewett. “The terror it inspired... you have no idea, you’re too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside...” Mrs. Prewett winced. “Everyone’s worst fear... the very worst.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Beth, removing the sheet from her arm to check on her cut, said, “Well, it didn’t help us tonight, whoever conjured it. It scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated before we’d got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses before they hit the ground, though. They’re having their memories modified right now.”

“Death Eaters?” said Harriet. “What are Death Eaters?”

“It’s what You-Know-Who’s supporters called themselves,” said Beth. “I think we saw what’s left of them tonight - the ones who managed to keep themselves out of Azkaban, anyway.”

“We can’t prove it was them, Beth,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Though it probably was,” she added hopelessly.

“Yeah, I bet it was!” said Ronnie suddenly. “Mum, we met Dahlia Black in the woods, and she as good as told us her mum was one of those nutters in masks! And we all know the Black’s were right in with You-Know-Who!”

“But what were Voldemort’s supporters -” Harriet began. Everybody flinched – like most of the wizarding world, the Prewetrs always avoided saying Voldemort’s name. “Sorry,” said Harriet quickly. “What were You-Know-Who’s supporters up to, levitating Muggles? I mean, what was the point?”

“The point?” said Mrs. Prewett with a hollow laugh. “Harriet, that’s their idea of fun. Half the Muggle killings back when You-Know-Who was in power were done for fun. I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn’t resist reminding us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them,” she finished disgustedly.

“But if they were the Death Eaters, why did they Disapparate when they saw the Dark Mark?” said Ronnie. “They’d have been pleased to see it, wouldn’t they?”

“Use your brains, Ronnie,” said Beth. “If they really were Death Eaters, they worked very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives... I don’t reckon he’d be over-pleased with them, do you?”

“So... whoever conjured the Dark Mark...” said Hermes slowly, “were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?”

“Your guess is as good as ours, Hermes,” said Mrs. Prewett. “But I’ll tell you this... it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I’d be very surprised if the person who did it hadn’t been a Death Eater once, even if they’re not now... Listen, it’s very late, and if your father hears what’s happened he’ll be worried sick. We’ll get a few more hours sleep and then try and get an early Portkey out of here.”

Harriet got back into her bunk with her head buzzing. She knew she ought to feel exhausted: It was nearly three in the morning, but she felt wide-awake – wide awake, and worried.

Three days ago - it felt like much longer, but it had only been three days - she had awoken with her scar burning. And tonight, for the first time in thirteen years, Lord Voldemort’s mark had appeared in the sky. What did these things mean? She thought of the letter she had written to Siri before leaving Privet Drive. Would Siri have gotten it yet? When would she reply? Harriet lay looking up at the canvas, but no flying fantasies came to her now to ease her to sleep, and it was a long time after Charlie’s snores filled the tent that Harriet finally dozed off.


	10. Mayhem at the Ministry

Mrs. Prewett woke them after only a few hours sleep. She used magic to pack up the tents, and they left the campsite as quickly as possible, passing Mr. Roberts at the door of his cottage. Mr. Roberts had a strange, dazed look about him, and he waved them off with a vague “Merry Christmas.”

“He’ll be all right,” said Mrs. Prewett quietly as they marched off onto the moor. “Sometimes, when a person’s memory’s modified, it makes him a bit disorientated for a while... and that was a big thing they had to make him forget.”

They heard urgent voices as they approached the spot where the Portkeys lay, and when they reached it, they found a great number of witches and wizards gathered around Basil, the keeper of the Portkeys, all clamoring to get away from the campsite as quickly as possible. Mrs. Prewett had a hurried discussion with Basil; they joined the queue, and were able to take an old rubber tire back to Stoatshead Hill before the sun had really risen. They walked back through Ottery St. Catchpole and up the damp lane toward the Burrow in the dawn light, talking very little because they were so exhausted, and thinking longingly of their breakfast. As they rounded the corner and the Burrow came into view, a cry echoed along the lane.

“Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!”

Mr. Prewett, who had evidently been waiting for them in the front yard, came running toward them, still wearing her bedroom slippers, his face pale and strained, a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet clutched in his hand.

“Arlene - I’ve been so worried - so worried-”

He flung his arms around Mrs. Prewett’s neck, and the Daily Prophet fell out of his limp hand onto the ground. Looking down, Harriet saw the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP, complete with a twinkling black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the treetops.

“You’re all right,” Mr. Prewett muttered distractedly, releasing Mrs. Prewett and staring around at them all with red eyes, “you’re alive... Oh girls...” And to everybody’s surprise, he seized Frankie and Georgina and pulled them both into such a tight hug that their heads banged together.

“Ouch! Dad - you’re strangling us -”

“I shouted at you before you left!” Mr. Prewett said, starting to sob. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about! What if You-Know-Who had got you, and the last thing I ever said to you was that you didn’t get enough OW.L.s? Oh Frankie... Georgina...”

“Come on, now, Michael, we’re all perfectly okay,” said Mrs. Prewett soothingly, prising him off the twins and leading him back toward the house. “Beth,” she added in an undertone, “pick up that paper, I want to see what it says...”

When they were all crammed into the tiny kitchen, and Hermes had made Mr. Prewett a cup of very strong tea, into which Mrs. Prewett insisted on pouring a shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey, Beth handed her mother the newspaper. Mrs. Prewett scanned the front page while Penelope looked over her shoulder.

“I knew it,” said Mrs. Prewett heavily. “Ministry blunders... culprits not apprehended... lax security... Dark wizards running unchecked... national disgrace... Who wrote this? Ah... of course... Peter Skeeter.”

“That man’s got it in for the Ministry of Magic!” said Penelope furiously. “Last week he was saying we’re wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn’t specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans —”

“Do us a favor, Penny,” said Beth, yawning, “and shut up.”

“I’m mentioned,” said Mrs. Prewett, her eyes widening behind her glasses as she reached the bottom of the Daily Prophet article.

“Where?” spluttered Mr. Prewett, choking on his tea and whiskey. “If I’d seen that, I’d have known you were alive!”

“Not by name,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Listen to this: ‘If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark alleging that nobody had been hurt, but refusing to give any more information. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.’ Oh really,” said Mrs. Prewett in exasperation, handing the paper to Penelope. “Nobody was hurt. What was I supposed to say? Rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods... well, there certainly will be rumors now he’s printed that.”

She heaved a deep sigh. “Michael, I’m going to have to go into the office; this is going to take some smoothing over.”

“I’ll come with you, Mother,” said Penelope importantly. “Mrs. Crouch will need all hands on deck. And I can give her my cauldron report in person.”

She bustled out of the kitchen. Mr. Prewett looked most upset. “Arlene, you’re supposed to be on holiday! This hasn’t got anything to do with your office; surely they can handle this without you?”

“I’ve got to go, Michael,” said Mrs. Prewett. “I’ve made things worse. I’ll just change into my robes and I’ll be off...”

“Mr. Prewett,” said Harriet suddenly, unable to contain herself, “Hedwig hasn’t arrived with a letter for me, has she?”

“Hedwig, dear?” said Mr. Prewett distractedly. “No... no, there hasn’t been any post at all.”

Ronnie and Hermes looked curiously at Harriet. With a meaningful look at both of them she said, “All right if I go and dump my stuff in your room, Ronnie?”

“Yeah... think I will too,” said Ronnie at once. “Hermes?”

“Yes,” he said quickly, and the three of them marched out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

“What’s up, Harriet?” said Ronnie, the moment they had closed the door of the attic room behind them.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Harriet said. “On Saturday morning, I woke up with my scar hurting again.”

Ronnie’s and Hermes’ reactions were almost exactly as Harriet had imagined them back in her bedroom on Privet Drive. Hermes gasped and started making suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from Ariana Dumbledore to Master Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse. Ronnie simply looked dumbstruck.

“But - he wasn’t there, was he? You-Know-Who? I mean - last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn’t he?”

“I’m sure he wasn’t on Privet Drive,” said Harriet. “But I was dreaming about him... him and Petunia - you know, Wormtail. I can’t remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill... someone.”

She had teetered for a moment on the verge of saying “me,” but couldn’t bring herself to make Hermes look any more horrified than he already did.

“It was only a dream,” said Ronnie bracingly. “Just a nightmare.”

“Yeah, but was it, though?” said Harriet, turning to look out of the window at the brightening sky. “It’s weird, isn’t it...? My scar hurts, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort’s sign’s up in the sky again.”

“Don’t - say - his - name!” Ronnie hissed through gritted teeth.

“And remember what Professor Trelawney said?” Harriet went on, ignoring Ronnie. “At the end of last year?”

Professor Trelawney was their Divination teacher at Hogwarts. Hermes’ terrified look vanished as he let out a derisive snort.

“Oh Harriet, you aren’t going to pay attention to anything that old fraud says?”

“You weren’t there,” said Harriet. “You didn’t hear him. This time was different. I told you, he went into a trance - a real one. And he said the Dark Lord would rise again... greater and more terrible than ever before... and he’d manage it because his servant was going to go back to him... and that night Wormtail escaped.”

There was a silence in which Ronnie fidgeted absentmindedly with a hole in her Chudley Cannons bedspread.

“Why were you asking if Hedwig had come, Harriet?” Hermes asked. “Are you expecting a letter?”

“I told Siri about my scar,” said Harriet, shrugging. “I’m waiting for her answer.”

“Good thinking!” said Ronnie, her expression clearing. “I bet Siri’ll know what to do!”

“I hoped she’d get back to me quickly,” said Harriet.

“But we don’t know where Siri is... she could be in Africa or somewhere, couldn’t she?” said Hermes reasonably. “Hedwig’s not going to manage that journey in a few days.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Harriet, but there was a leaden feeling in her stomach as she looked out of the window at the Hedwig-free sky.

“Come and have a game of Quidditch in the orchard, Harriet” said Ronnie. “Come on - three on three, Beth and Charlie and Frankie and Georgina will play... You can try out the Wronski Feint... “

“Ronnie,” said Hermes, in an I-don’t-think-you’re-being-very-sensitive sort of voice, “Harriet doesn’t want to play Quidditch right now... She’s worried, and she’s tired... We all need to go to bed...”

“Yeah, I want to play Quidditch,” said Harriet suddenly. “Hang on, I’ll get my Firebolt.”

Hermes left the room, muttering something that sounded very much like “Girls.”

Neither Mrs. Prewett nor Penelope was at home much over the following week. Both left the house each morning before the rest of the family got up, and returned well after dinner every night.

“It’s been an absolute uproar,” Penelope told them importantly the Sunday evening before they were due to return to Hogwarts. “I’ve been putting out fires all week. People keep sending Howlers, and of course, if you don’t open a Howler straight away, it explodes. Scorch marks all over my desk and my best quill reduced to cinders.”

“Why are they all sending Howlers?” asked Jerry, who was mending his copy of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi with Spellotape on the rug in front of the living room fire.

“Complaining about security at the World Cup,” said Penelope. “They want compensation for their ruined property. Mundungus Fletcher’s put in a claim for a twelve-bedroomed tent with en-suite Jacuzzi, but I’ve got his number. I know for a fact he was sleeping under a cloak propped on sticks.”

Mr. Prewett glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. Harriet liked this clock. It was completely useless if you wanted to know the time, but otherwise very informative. It had nine golden hands, and each of them was engraved with one of the Prewett family’s names. There were no numerals around the face, but descriptions of where each family member might be. “Home,” “school,” and “work” were there, but there was also “traveling,” “lost,” “hospital,” “prison,” and, in the position where the number twelve would be on a normal clock, “mortal peril.”

Eight of the hands were currently pointing to the “home” position, but Mrs. Prewett’s, which was the longest, was still pointing to “work.” Mr. Prewett sighed.

“Your mother hasn’t had to go into the office on weekends since the days of You- Know-Who,” he said. “They’re working her far too hard. Her dinner’s going to be ruined if she doesn’t come home soon.”

“Well, Mother feels she’s got to make up for her mistake at the match, doesn’t she?” said Penelope. “If truth be told, she was a tad unwise to make a public statement without clearing it with her Head of Department first -”

“Don’t you dare blame your mother for what that wretched Skeeter man wrote!” said Mr. Prewett, flaring up at once.

“If Mum hadn’t said anything, old Peter would just have said it was disgraceful that nobody from the Ministry had commented,” said Beth, who was playing chess with Ronnie. “Peter Skeeter never makes anyone look good. Remember, he interviewed all the Gringotts’ Charm Breakers once, and called me ‘a long-haired pillock’?”

“Well, it is a bit long, dear,” said Mr. Prewett gently. “If you’d just let me -” 

“No, Dad.”

Rain lashed against the living room window. Hermes was immersed in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, copies of which Mr. Prewett had bought for him, Harriet, and Ronnie in Diagon Alley. Charlie was darning a fireproof balaclava. Harriet was polishing her Firebolt, the broomstick servicing kit Hermes had given her for her thirteenth birthday open at her feet. Frankie and Georgina were sitting in a far corner, quills out, talking in whispers, their heads bent over a piece of parchment.

“What are you two up to?” said Mr. Prewett sharply, his eyes on the twins. 

“Homework,” said Frankie vaguely.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re still on holiday,” said Mr. Prewett.

“Yeah, we’ve left it a bit late,” said Georgina.

“You’re not by any chance writing out a new order form, are you?” said Mr. Prewett shrewdly. “You wouldn’t be thinking of restarting Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, by any chance?”

“Now, Dad,” said Frankie, looking up at him, a pained look on her face. “If the Hogwarts Express crashed tomorrow, and Georgina and I died, how would you feel to know that the last thing we ever heard from you was an unfounded accusation?”

Everyone laughed, even Mr. Prewett.

“Oh your mother’s coming!” he said suddenly, looking up at the clock again.

Mrs. Prewett’s hand had suddenly spun from “work” to “traveling”; a second later it had shuddered to a halt on “home” with the others, and they heard her calling from the kitchen. 

“Coming, Arlene!” called Mr. Prewett, hurrying out of the room. A few moments later, Mrs. Prewett came into the warm living room carrying her dinner on a tray. She looked completely exhausted.

“Well, the fat’s really in the fire now,” she told Mr. Prewett as she sat down in an armchair near the hearth and toyed unenthusiastically with her somewhat shriveled cauliflower. “Peter Skeeter’s been ferreting around all week, looking for more Ministry mess-ups to report. And now he’s found out about poor old Bertha going missing, so that’ll be the headline in the Prophet tomorrow. I told Bagman she should have sent someone to look for her ages ago.”

“Mrs. Crouch has been saying it for weeks and weeks,” said Penelope swiftly.

“Crouch is very lucky Peter hasn’t found out about Winky,” said Mrs. Prewett irritably. “There’d be a week’s worth of headlines in her house-elf being caught holding the wand that conjured the Dark Mark.”

“I thought we were all agreed that that elf, while irresponsible, did not conjure the Mark?” said Penelope hotly.

“If you ask me, Mrs. Crouch is very lucky no one at the Daily Prophet knows how mean she is to elves!” said Hermes angrily.

“Now look here, Hermes!” said Penelope. “A high-ranking Ministry official like Mrs. Crouch deserves unswerving obedience from her servants -”

“Her slave, you mean!” said Hermes, his voice rising passionately, “because she didn’t pay Winky, did she?”

“I think you’d all better go upstairs and check that you’ve packed properly!” said Mr. Prewett, breaking up the argument. “Come on now, all of you...”

Harriet repacked her broomstick servicing kit, put her Firebolt over her shoulder, and went back upstairs with Ronnie. The rain sounded even louder at the top of the house, accompanied by loud whistlings and moans from the wind, not to mention sporadic howls from the ghoul who lived in the attic. Pigwidgeon began twittering and zooming around his cage when they entered. The sight of the half-packed trunks seemed to have sent him into a frenzy of excitement.

“Bung him some Owl Treats,” said Ronnie, throwing a packet across to Harriet. “It might shut him up.”

Harriet poked a few Owl Treats through the bars of Pigwidgeon’s cage, then turned to her trunk. Hedwig’s cage stood next to it, still empty.

“It’s been over a week,” Harriet said, looking at Hedwig’s deserted perch. “Ronnie, you don’t reckon Siri has been caught, do you?”

“Nah, it would’ve been in the Daily Prophet,” said Ronnie. “The Ministry would want to show they’d caught someone, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah, I suppose...”

“Look, here’s the stuff Dad got for you in Diagon Alley. And he’s got some gold out of your vault for you... and he’s washed all your socks.”

She heaved a pile of parcels onto Harriet’s camp bed and dropped the money bag and a load of socks next to it. Harriet started unwrapping the shopping. Apart from The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, by Miranda Goshawk, she had a handful of new quills, a dozen rolls of parchment, and refills for his potion-making kit - she had been running low on spine of lionfish and essence of belladonna. She was just piling underwear into her cauldron when Ronnie made a loud noise of disgust behind her.

“What is that supposed to be?”

She was holding up something that looked to Harriet like a long, maroon velvet dress. It had a moldy-looking lace frill at the collar and matching lace cuffs. There was a knock on the door, and Mr. Prewett entered, carrying an armful of freshly laundered Hogwarts robes.

“Here you are,” he said, sorting them into two piles. “Now, mind you pack them properly so they don’t crease.”

“Dad, you’ve given me one of Aunt Muriel’s dresses,” said Ronnie, handing it out to him.

“Of course I haven’t,” said Mr. Prewett. “That’s for you. Dress robes.” 

“What?” said Ronnie, looking horror-struck.

“Dress robes!” repeated Mr. Prewett. “It says on your school list that you’re supposed to have dress robes this year... robes for formal occasions.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Ronnie in disbelief. “I’m not wearing that, no way.”

“Everyone wears them, Ronnie!” said Mr. Prewett crossly. “They’re all like that! Your mother’s got some for smart parties!”

“I’ll go starkers before I put that on,” said Ronnie stubbornly.

“Don’t be so silly,” said Mr. Prewett. “You’ve got to have dress robes, they’re on your list! I got some for Harriet too... show her, Harriet...”

In some trepidation, Harriet opened the last parcel on her camp bed. It wasn’t as bad as she had expected, however; her dress robes didn’t have any lace on them at all - in fact, they were more or less the same as her school ones, except that they were bottle green instead of black.

“I thought they’d bring out the color of your eyes, dear,” said Mr. Prewett fondly.

“Well, they’re okay!” said Ronnie angrily, looking at Harriet’s robes. “Why couldn’t I have some like that?”

“Because... well, I had to get yours secondhand, and there wasn’t a lot of choice!” said Mr. Prewett, flushing.

Harriet looked away. She would willingly have split all the money in his Gringotts vault with the Prewetts, but she knew they would never take it.

“I’m never wearing them,” Ronnie was saying stubbornly. “Never.”

“Fine,” snapped Mr. Prewett. “Go naked. And, w, make sure you get a picture of her. Goodness knows I could do with a laugh.”

He left the room, slamming the door behind him. There was a funny spluttering noise from behind them. Pigwidgeon was choking on an overlarge Owl Treat.

“Why is everything I own rubbish?” said Ronnie furiously, striding across the room to unstick Pigwidgeon’s beak.


	11. Aboard the Hogwarts Express

There was a definite end-of-the-holidays gloom in the air when Harriet awoke next morning. Heavy rain was still splattering against the window as she got dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt; they would change into their school robes on the Hogwarts Express.

She, Ronnie, Frankie, and Georgina had just reached the first-floor landing on their way down to breakfast, when Mr. Prewett appeared at the foot of the stairs, looking harassed.

“Arlene!” he called up the staircase. “Arlene! Urgent message from the Ministry!”

Harriet flattened herself against the wall as Mrs. Prewett came clattering past with her robes on back-to-front and hurtled out of sight. When Harriet and the others entered the kitchen, they saw Mr. Prewett rummaging anxiously in the drawers –

“I’ve got a quill here somewhere!” - and Mrs. Prewett bending over the fire, talking to -  
Harriet shut her eyes hard and opened them again to make sure that they were working properly.

Amy Diggory’s head was sitting in the middle of the flames like a large, bearded egg. It was talking very fast, completely unperturbed by the sparks flying around it and the flames licking its ears.

“... Muggle neighbors heard bangs and shouting, so they went and called those what-d’you-call- ’ems - please-men. Arlene, you’ve got to get over there —”

“Here!” said Mr. Prewett breathlessly, pushing a piece of parchment, a bottle of ink, and a crumpled quill into Mrs. Prewett’s hands.

“- it’s a real stroke of luck I heard about it,” said Mrs. Diggory’s head. “I had to come into the office early to send a couple of owls, and I found the Improper Use of Magic lot all setting off — if Peter Skeeter gets hold of this one, Arlene —”

“What does Mad-Eye say happened?” asked Mrs. Prewett, unscrewing the ink bottle, loading up her quill, and preparing to take notes.

Mrs. Diggory’s head rolled its eyes. “Says she heard an intruder in her yard. Says she was creeping toward the house, but was ambushed by her dustbins.”

“What did the dustbins do?” asked Mrs. Prewett, scribbling frantically.

“Made one hell of a noise and fired rubbish everywhere, as far as I can tell,” said Mrs. Diggory. “Apparently one of them was still rocketing around when the pleasemen turned up -”

Mrs. Prewett groaned.

“And what about the intruder?”

“Arlene, you know Mad-Eye,” said Mrs. Diggory’s head, rolling its eyes again. “Someone creeping into her yard in the dead of night? More likely there’s a very shell-shocked cat wandering around somewhere, covered in potato peelings. But if the Improper Use of Magic lot get their hands on Mad-Eye, she’s had it — think of her record — we’ve got to get her off on a minor charge, something in your department — what are exploding dustbins worth?”

“Might be a caution,” said Mrs. Prewett, still writing very fast, her brow furrowed. “Mad-Eye didn’t use her wand? She didn’t actually attack anyone?”

“I’ll bet she leapt out of bed and started jinxing everything she could reach through the window,” said Mrs. Diggory, “but they’ll have a job proving it, there aren’t any casualties.”

“All right, I’m off,” Mrs. Prewett said, and she stuffed the parchment with her notes on it into her pocket and dashed out of the kitchen again.

Mrs. Diggory’s head looked around at Mr. Prewett.

“Sorry about this, Michael,” it said, more calmly, “bothering you so early and everything... but Arlene’s the only one who can get Mad-Eye off, and Mad-Eye’s supposed to be starting her new job today. Why she had to choose last night...”

“Never mind, Amy,” said Mrs. Prewett. “Sure you won’t have a bit of toast or anything before you go?”

“Oh go on, then,” said Mrs. Diggory.

Mr. Prewett took a piece of buttered toast from a stack on the kitchen table, put it into the fire tongs, and transferred it into Mrs. Diggory’s mouth. “Fanks,” she said in a muffled voice, and then, with a small pop, vanished.

Harriet could hear Mrs. Prewett calling hurried good-byes to Beth, Charlie, Penelope, and the boys. Within five minutes, she was back in the kitchen, her robes on the right way now, dragging a comb through her hair.

“I’d better hurry - you have a good term, girls,” said Mrs. Prewett to Harriet, Ronnie, and the twins, fastening a cloak over her shoulders and preparing to Disapparate.

“Michael, are you going to be all right taking the kids to King’s Cross?”

“Of course I will,” he said. “You just look after Mad-Eye, we’ll be fine.”

As Mrs. Prewett vanished, Beth and Charlie entered the kitchen.

“Did someone say Mad-Eye?” Beth asked. “What’s she been up to now.”

“She says someone tried to break into her house last night,” said Mr. Prewett.

“Mad-Eye Moody?” said Georgina thoughtfully, spreading marmalade on his toast. “Isn’t she that nutter -”

“Your mother thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody,” said Mr. Prewett sternly.

“Yeah, well, Mum collects plugs, doesn’t she?” said Frankie quietly as Mr. Prewett left the room.

“Birds of a feather...”

“Moody was a great wizard in her time,” said Beth.

“She’s an old friend of Dumbledore’s, isn’t she?” said Charlie.

“Dumbledore’s not what you’d call normal, though, is she?” said Frankie. “I mean, I know she’s a genius and everything...”

“Who is Mad-Eye?” asked Harriet.

“She’s retired, used to work at the Ministry,” said Charlie. “I met her once when Mum took me into work with her. She was an Auror - one of the best... a Dark wizard catcher,” she added, seeing Harriet’s blank look “Half the cells in Azkaban are full because of her. She made herself loads of enemies, though... the families of people she caught, mainly... and I heard she’s been getting really paranoid in her old age. Doesn’t trust anyone anymore. Sees Dark wizards everywhere.”

Beth and Charlie decided to come and see everyone off at King’s Cross station, but Penelope, apologizing most profusely, said that she really needed to get to work.

“I just can’t justify taking more time off at the moment,” she told them. “Mrs. Crouch is really starting to rely on me.”

“Yeah, you know what, Penelope?” said Georgina seriously. “I reckon she’ll know your name soon.”

Mr. Prewett had braved the telephone in the village post office to order three ordinary Muggle taxis to take them into London.

“Arlene tried to borrow Ministry cars for us,” Mr. Prewett whispered to Harriet as they stood in the rain-washed yard, watching the taxi drivers heaving six heavy Hogwarts trunks into their cars. “But there weren’t any to spare... Oh dear, they don’t look happy, do they?”

Harriet didn’t like to tell Mr. Prewett that Muggle taxi drivers rarely transported overexcited owls, and Pigwidgeon was making an earsplitting racket. Nor did it help that a number of Filibuster’s Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks went off unexpectedly when Frankie’s trunk sprang open, causing the driver carrying it to yell with fright and pain as Crookshanks clawed his way up the woman’s leg.

The journey was uncomfortable, owing to the fact that they were jammed in the back of the taxis with their trunks. Crookshanks took quite a while to recover from the fireworks, and by the time they entered London, Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes were all severely scratched. They were very relieved to get out at King’s Cross, even though the rain was coming down harder than ever, and they got soaked carrying their trunks across the busy road and into the station.

Harriet was used to getting onto platform nine and three-quarters by now. It was a simple matter of walking straight through the apparently solid barrier dividing platforms nine and ten. The only tricky part was doing this in an unobtrusive way, so as to avoid attracting Muggle attention. They did it in groups today; Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes (the most conspicuous, since they were accompanied by Pigwidgeon and Crookshanks) went first; they leaned casually against the barrier, chatting unconcernedly, and slid sideways through it... and as they did so, platform nine and three-quarters materialized in front of them.

The Hogwarts Express, a gleaming scarlet steam engine, was already there, clouds of steam billowing from it, through which the many Hogwarts students and parents on the platform appeared like dark ghosts. Pigwidgeon became noisier than ever in response to the hooting of many owls through the mist. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes set off to find seats, and were soon stowing their luggage in a compartment halfway along the train. They then hopped back down onto the platform to say good-bye to Mr. Prewett, Beth, and Charlie.

“I might be seeing you all sooner than you think,” said Charlie, grinning, as she hugged Jerry good-bye.

“Why?” said Frankie keenly.

“You’ll see,” said Charlie. “Just don’t tell Penelope I mentioned it... it’s ‘classified information, until such time as the Ministry sees fit to release it,’ after all.”

“Yeah, I sort of wish I were back at Hogwarts this year,” said Beth, hands in her pockets, looking almost wistfully at the train.

“Why?” said Georgina impatiently.

“You’re going to have an interesting year,” said Beth, her eyes twinkling. “I might even get time off to come and watch a bit of it.”

“A bit of what?” said Ronnie.

But at that moment, the whistle blew, and Mr. Prewett chivvied them toward the train doors.

“Thanks for having us to stay, Mr. Prewett,” said Hermes as they climbed on board, closed the door, and leaned out of the window to talk to him.

“Yeah, thanks for everything, Mr. Prewett,” said Harriet.

“Oh it was my pleasure, dears,” said Mr. Prewett. “I’d invite you for Christmas, but... well, I expect you’re all going to want to stay at Hogwarts, what with... one thing and another.”

“Mum!” said Ronnie irritably. “What d’you three know that we don’t?”

“You’ll find out this evening, I expect,” said Mr. Prewett, smiling. “It’s going to be very exciting - mind you, I’m very glad they’ve changed the rules -”

“What rules?” said Harriet, Ronnie, Frankie, and Georgina together.

“I’m sure Professor Dumbledore will tell you... Now, behave, won’t you? Won’t you, Frankie? And you, Georgina?”

The pistons hissed loudly and the train began to move.

“Tell us what’s happening at Hogwarts!” Frankie bellowed out of the window as Mr. Prewett, Beth, and Charlie sped away from them. “What rules are they changing?”

But Mr. Prewett only smiled and waved. Before the train had rounded the corner, he, Beth, and Charlie had Disapparated.

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes went back to their compartment. The thick rain splattering the windows made it very difficult to see out of them. Ronnie undid her trunk, pulled out her maroon dress robes, and flung them over Pigwidgeon’s cage to muffle her hooting.

“Bagman wanted to tell us what’s happening at Hogwarts,” she said grumpily, sitting down next to Harriet. “At the World Cup, remember? But my own father won’t say. Wonder what —”

“Shh!” Hermes whispered suddenly, pressing his finger to his lips and pointing toward the compartment next to theirs. Harriet and Ronnie listened, and heard a familiar drawling voice drifting in through the open door.

“... Mother actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. She knows the headmistress, you see. Well, you know her opinion of Dumbledore - the woman’s such a Mudblood-lover - and Durmstrang doesn’t admit that sort of riffraff. But Father didn’t like the idea of me going to school so far away. Mother says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do...”

Hermes got up, tiptoed to the compartment door, and slid it shut, blocking out Black’s voice.

“So she thinks Durmstrang would have suited her, does she?” He said angrily. “I wish she had gone, then we wouldn’t have to put up with her.”

“Durmstrang’s another wizarding school?” said Harriet.

“Yes,” said Hermes sniffily, “and it’s got a horrible reputation. According to An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe, it puts a lot of emphasis on the Dark Arts.”

“I think I’ve heard of it,” said Ronnie vaguely. “Where is it? What country?” 

“Well, nobody knows, do they?” said Hermes, raising his eyebrows. 

“Er - why not?” said Harriet.

“There’s traditionally been a lot of rivalry between all the magic schools. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons like to conceal their whereabouts so nobody can steal their secrets,” said Hermes matter-of-factly.

“Come off it,” said Ronnie, starting to laugh. “Durmstrang’s got to be about the same size as Hogwarts — how are you going to hide a great big castle?”

“But Hogwarts is hidden,” said Hermes, in surprise. “Everyone knows that... well, everyone who’s read Hogwarts, A History, anyway.”

“Just you, then,” said Ronnie. “So go on - how d’you hide a place like Hogwarts?”

“It’s bewitched,” said Hermes. “If a Muggle looks at it, all they see is a moldering old ruin with a sign over the entrance saying DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, UNSAFE.”

“So Durmstrang’ll just look like a ruin to an outsider too?”

“Maybe,” said Hermes, shrugging, “or it might have Muggle-repelling charms on it, like the World Cup stadium. And to keep foreign wizards from finding it, they’ll have made it Unplottable -”

“Come again?”

“Well, you can enchant a building so it’s impossible to plot on a map, can’t you?” 

“Er... if you say so,” said Harriet.

“But I think Durmstrang must be somewhere in the far north,” said Hermes thoughtfully. “Somewhere very cold, because they’ve got fur capes as part of their uniforms.”

“Ah, think of the possibilities,” said Ronnie dreamily. “It would’ve been so easy to push Black off a glacier and make it look like an accident... Shame her father likes her...”

The rain became heavier and heavier as the train moved farther north. The sky was so dark and the windows so steamy that the lanterns were lit by midday. The lunch trolley came rattling along the corridor, and Harriet bought a large stack of Cauldron Cakes for them to share. Several of their friends looked in on them as the afternoon progressed, including Sinead Finnigan, Dinah Thomas, and Netta Longbottom, a round-faced, extremely forgetful girl who had been brought up by her formidable wizard of a grandfather. Sinead was still wearing herIreland rosette. Some of its magic seemed to be wearing off now; it was still squeaking “Troy - Mullet - Moran!” but in a very feeble and exhausted sort of way. After half an hour or so, Hermes, growing tired of the endless Quidditch talk, buried himself once more in The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, and started trying to learn a Summoning Charm.

Netta listened jealously to the others’ conversation as they relived the Cup match.

“Pa didn’t want to go,” she said miserably. “Wouldn’t buy tickets. It sounded amazing though.”

“It was,” said Ronnie. “Look at this, Netta...”

She rummaged in her trunk up in the luggage rack and pulled out the miniature figure of Viktor Krum.

“Oh wow,” said Netta enviously as Ronnie tipped Krum onto her pudgy hand. 

“We saw her right up close, as well,” said Ronnie. “We were in the Top Box -” 

“For the first and last time in your life, Prewett.”

Dahlia Black had appeared in the doorway. Behind her stood Crabbe and Goyle, her enormous, thuggish cronies, both of whom appeared to have grown at least a foot during the summer. Evidently they had overheard the conversation through the compartment door, which Dinah and Sinead had left ajar.

“Don’t remember asking you to join us, Black,” said Harriet coolly.

“Prewett... what is that?” said Black, pointing at Pigwidgeon’s cage. A sleeve of Ronnie’s dress robes was dangling from it, swaying with the motion of the train, the moldy lace cuff very obvious.

Ronnie made to stuff the robes out of sight, but Black was too quick for her; she seized the sleeve and pulled.

“Look at this!” said Black in ecstasy, holding up Ronnie’s robes and showing Crabbe and Goyle, “Prewett, you weren’t thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean - they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety...”

“Eat dung, Black!” said Ronnie, the same color as the dress robes as she snatched them back out of Black’s grip. Black howled with derisive laughter; Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly.

“So... going to enter, Prewett? Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There’s money involved as well, you know... you’d be able to afford some decent robes if you won...”

“What are you talking about?” snapped Ronnie.

“Are you going to enter?” Black repeated. “I suppose you will, Evans? You never miss a chance to show off, do you?”

“Either explain what you’re on about or go away, Black,” said Hermes testily, over the top of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

A gleeful smile spread across Black’s pale face. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t know?” she said delightedly. “You’ve got a mother and sister at the Ministry and you don’t even know? My God, my mother told me about it ages ago... heard it from Cornetta Fudge. But then, Mother’s always associated with the top people at the Ministry... Maybe your mother’s too junior to know about it, Prewett... yes... they probably don’t talk about important stuff in front of her...”

Laughing once more, Black beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle, and the three of them disappeared. Ronnie got to her feet and slammed the sliding compartment door so hard behind them that the glass shattered.

“Ronnie!” said Hermes reproachfully, and he pulled out his wand, muttered “Reparo!” and the glass shards flew back into a single pane and back into the door.

“Well... making it look like she knows everything and we don’t...” Ronnie snarled. “‘Mother’s always associated with the top peopie at the Ministry’... Mum could’ve got a promotion any time... she just likes it where she is...”

“Of course she does,” said Hermes quietly. “Don’t let Black get to you, Ronnie -”

“Her! Get to me!? As if!” said Ronnie, picking up one of the remaining Cauldron Cakes and squashing it into a pulp.

Ronnie’s bad mood continued for the rest of the journey. She didn’t talk much as they changed into their school robes, and was still glowering when the Hogwarts Express slowed down at last and finally stopped in the pitch-darkness of Hogsmeade station.

As the train doors opened, there was a rumble of thunder overhead. Hermes bundled up Crookshanks in his cloak and Ronnie left her dress robes over Pigwidgeon as they left the train, heads bent and eyes narrowed against the downpour. The rain was now coming down so thick and fast that it was as though buckets of ice-cold water were being emptied repeatedly over their heads.

“Hi, Hagrid!” Harriet yelled, seeing a gigantic silhouette at the far end of the platform.

“All righ’, Harriet?” Hagrid bellowed back, waving. “See yeh at the feast if we don’ drown!” First years traditionally reached Hogwarts Castle by sailing across the lake with Hagrid.

“Oooh, I wouldn’t fancy crossing the lake in this weather,” said Hermes fervently, shivering as they inched slowly along the dark platform with the rest of the crowd. A hundred horseless carriages stood waiting for them outside the station. Harriet, Ronnie, Hermes, and Netta climbed gratefully into one of them, the door shut with a snap, and a few moments later, with a great lurch, the long procession of carriages was rumbling and splashing its way up the track toward Hogwarts Castle.


	12. The Triwizard Tournament

Through the gates, flanked with statues of winged boars, and up the sweeping drive the carriages trundled, swaying dangerously in what was fast becoming a gale. Leaning against the window, Harriet could see Hogwarts coming nearer, its many lighted windows blurred and shimmering behind the thick curtain of rain. Lightning flashed across the sky as their carriage came to a halt before the great oak front doors, which stood at the top of a flight of stone steps. People who had occupied the carriages in front were already hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Harriet, Ronnie, Hermes, and Netta jumped down from their carriage and dashed up the steps too, looking up only when they were safely inside the cavernous, torch-lit entrance hall, with its magnificent marble staircase.

“Blimey,” said Ronnie, shaking her head and sending water everywhere, “if that keeps up the lake’s going to overflow. I’m soak - ARRGH!”

A large, red, water-filled balloon had dropped from out of the ceiling onto Ronnie’s head and exploded. Drenched and sputtering, Ronnie staggered sideways into Harriet, just as a second water bomb dropped - narrowly missing Hermes, it burst at Harriet’s feet, sending a wave of cold water over her trainers into her socks. People all around them shrieked and started pushing one another in their efforts to get out of the line of fire. Harriet looked up and saw, floating twenty feet above them, Peeves the Poltergeist, a little man in a bell-covered hat and orange bow tie, his wide, malicious face contorted with concentration as he took aim again.

“PEEVES!” yelled an angry voice. “Peeves, come down here at ONCE!”

Professor McGonagall, Deputy Headmaster and head of Gryffindor House, had come dashing out of the Great Hall; he skidded on the wet floor and grabbed Hermes around the neck to stop himself from falling.

“Ouch - sorry, Mr. Granger -”

“That’s all right, Professor!” Hermes gasped, massaging his throat.

“Peeves, get down here NOW!” barked Professor McGonagall, straightening his pointed hat and glaring upward through his square-rimmed spectacles.

“Not doing nothing!” cackled Peeves, lobbing a water bomb at several fifth-year girls, who screamed and dived into the Great Hall. “Already wet, aren’t they? Little squirts! Wheeeeeeeeee!” And he aimed another bomb at a group of second years who had just arrived.

“I shall call the headmistress!” shouted Professor McGonagall. “I’m warning you, Peeves -”

Peeves stuck out his tongue, threw the last of his water bombs into the air, and zoomed off up the marble staircase, cackling insanely.

“Well, move along, then!” said Professor McGonagall sharply to the bedraggled crowd. “Into the Great Hall, come on!”

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes slipped and slid across the entrance hall and through the double doors on the right, Ronnie muttering furiously under her breath as she pushed her sopping hair off her face.

The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes walked past the Slytherins, the Ravenclaws, and the Hufflepuffs, and sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn’t wobble too much on his partially severed neck.

“Good evening,” he said, beaming at them.

“Says who?” said Harriet, taking off her trainers and emptying them of water. “Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I’m starving.”

The Sorting of the new students into Houses took place at the start of every school year, but by an unlucky combination of circumstances, Harriet hadn’t been present at one since her own. She was quite looking forward to it. Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table.

“Hiya, Harriet!”

It was Colette Creevey, a third year to whom Harriet was something of a hero.

“Hi, Colette,” said Harriet warily.

“Harriet, guess what? Guess what, Harriet? My sister’s starting! My brother Denise!”

“Er - good,” said Harriet.

“She’s really excited!” said Colette, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “I just hope she’s in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harriet?”

“Er - yeah, all right,” said Harriet. She turned back to Hermes, Ronnie, and Nearly Headless Nick.

“Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don’t they?” she said. She was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor.

“Oh no, not necessarily,” said Hermes. “Paavan Patil’s twin’s in Ravenclaw, and they’re identical. You’d think they’d be together, wouldn’t you?”

Harriet looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting her way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and Harriet couldn’t think who else was missing.

“Where’s the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Hermes, who was also looking up at the teachers.

They had never yet had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who had lasted more than three terms. Harriet’s favorite by far had been Professor Howell, who had resigned last year. She looked up and down the staff table. There was definitely no new face there.

“Maybe they couldn’t get anyone!” said Hermes, looking anxious.

Harriet scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over his flyaway gray hair. He was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra’s other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Prince - Harriet’s least favorite person at Hogwarts. Harriet’s loathing of Prince was matched only by Prince’s hatred of her, a hatred which had, if possible, intensified last year, when Harriet had helped Siri escape right under Prince’s overlarge nose – Prince and Siri had been enemies since their own school days.

On Prince’s other side was an empty seat, which Harriet guessed was Professor McGonagall’s. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmistress, her sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, her magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore’s long, thin fingers were together and she was resting her chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through her half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harriet glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and she had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.

“Oh hurry up,” Ronnie moaned, beside Harriet, “I could eat a hippogriff.”

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. All of them were shivering with a combination of cold and nerves as they filed along the staff table and came to a halt in a line facing the rest of the school - all of them except the smallest of the lot, a girl with mousy hair, who was wrapped in what Harriet recognized as Hagrid’s moleskin overcoat. The coat was so big for her that it looked as though she were draped in a furry black circus tent. Her small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited. When she had lined up with her terrified-looking peers, she caught Colette Creevey’s eye, gave a double thumbs-up, and mouthed, ‘I fell in the lake!’ She looked positively delighted about it.

Professor McGonagall now placed a three-legged stool on the ground before the first years and, on top of it, an extremely old, dirty patched wizard’s hat. The first years stared at it. So did everyone else. For a moment, there was silence. Then a long tear near the brim opened wide like a mouth, and the hat broke into song:

“A thousand years or more ago,  
When I was newly sewn,  
There lived four wizards of renown,  
Whose names are still well known:  
Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,  
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,  
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,  
Shrewd Slytherin, from fin.  
They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,  
They hatched a daring plan  
To educate young sorcerers  
Thus Hogwarts School began.  
Now each of these four founders  
Formed their own house, for each  
Did value different virtues  
In the ones they had to teach.  
By Gryffindor, the bravest were  
Prized far beyond the rest;  
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest  
Would always be the best;  
For Hufflepuff, hard workers were  
Most worthy of admission;  
And power-hungry Slytherin  
Loved those of great ambition.  
While still alive they did divide  
Their favorites from the throng,  
Yet how to pick the worthy ones  
When they were dead and gone?  
‘Twas Gryffindor who found the way,  
He whipped me off his head  
The founders put some brains in me  
So I could choose instead!  
Now slip me snug about your ears,  
I’ve never yet been wrong,  
I’ll have a look inside your mind  
And tell where you belong!”

The Great Hall rang with applause as the Sorting Hat finished.

“That’s not the song it sang when it Sorted us,” said Harriet, clapping along with everyone else.

“Sings a different one every year,” said Ronnie. “It’s got to be a pretty boring life, hasn’t it, being a hat? I suppose it spends all year making up the next one.”

Professor McGonagall was now unrolling a large scroll of parchment.

“When I call out your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool,” he told the first years. “When the hat announces your House, you will go and sit at the appropriate table.

“Ackerley, Stella!”

A girl walked forward, visibly trembling from head to foot, picked up the Sorting Hat, put it on, and sat down on the stool.

“RAVENCLAW!” shouted the hat.

Stella Ackerley took off the hat and hurried into a seat at the Ravenclaw table, where everyone was applauding her. Harriet caught a glimpse of Chen, the Ravenclaw Seeker, cheering Stella Ackerley as she sat down. For a fleeting second, Harriet had a strange desire to join the Ravenclaw table too.

“Baddock, Malinda!” “SLYTHERIN!”

The table on the other side of the hall erupted with cheers; Harriet could see Black clapping as Baddock joined the Slytherins. Harriet wondered whether Baddock knew that Slytherin House had turned out more Dark witches and wizards than any other. Frankie and Georgina hissed Malinda Baddock as she sat down.

“Branstone, Etienne!” 

“HUFFLEPUFF!” 

“Cauldwell, Olga!” 

“HUFFLEPUFF!” 

“Creevey, Denise!”

Tiny Denise Creevey staggered forward, tripping over Hagrid’s moleskin, just as Hagrid herself sidled into the Hall through a door behind the teachers’ table. About twice as tall as a normal woman, and at least three times as broad, Hagrid, with her long, wild, tangled black hair, looked slightly alarming – a misleading impression, for Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes knew Hagrid to possess a very kind nature. She winked at them as she sat down at the end of the staff table and watched Denise Creevey putting on the Sorting Hat. The rip at the brim opened wide -

“GRYFFINDOR!” the hat shouted.

Hagrid clapped along with the Gryffindors as Denise Creevey, beaming widely, took off the hat, placed it back on the stool, and hurried over to join her sister.

“Colette, I fell in!” she said shrilly, throwing herself into an empty seat. “It was brilliant! And something in the water grabbed me and pushed me back in the boat!”

“Cool!” said Colette, just as excitedly. “It was probably the giant squid, Denise!”

“Wow!” said Denise, as though nobody in their wildest dreams could hope for more than being thrown into a storm-tossed, fathoms-deep lake, and pushed out of it again by a giant sea monster.

“Denise! Denise! See that girl down there? The one with the black hair and glasses? See her? Know who she is, Denise?”

Harriet looked away, staring very hard at the Sorting Hat, now Sorting Emmett Dobbs.

The Sorting continued; boys and girls with varying degrees of fright on their faces moving one by one to the three-legged stool, the line dwindling slowly as Professor McGonagall passed the L’s.

“Oh hurry up,” Ronnie, massaging her stomach.

“Now, Ronnie, the Sorting’s much more important than food,” said Nearly Headless Nick as “Madley, Lawrence!” became a Hufflepuff.

“Course it is, if you’re dead,” snapped Ronnie.

“I do hope this year’s batch of Gryffindors are up to scratch,” said Nearly Headless Nick, applauding as “McDonald, Natalie!” joined the Gryffindor table. “We don’t want to break our winning streak, do we?”

Gryffindor had won the Inter-House Championship for the last three years in a row.

“Pritchard, Gayle!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

“Quirke, Orwell!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

And finally, with “Whitby, Kerry!” (“HUFFLEPUFF!”), the Sorting ended.

Professor McGonagall picked up the hat and the stool and carried them away. 

“About time,” said Ronnie, seizing her knife and fork and looking expectantly at her golden plate.

Professor Dumbledore had gotten to her feet. She was smiling around at the students, her arms opened wide in welcome.

“I have only two words to say to you,” she told them, her deep voice echoing around the Hall. “Tuck in.”

“Hear, hear!” said Harriet and Ronnie loudly as the empty dishes filled magically before their eyes. Nearly Headless Nick watched mournfully as Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes loaded their own plates.

“Aaah, ‘at’s be’er,” said Ronnie, with her mouth full of mashed potato.

“You’re lucky there’s a feast at all tonight, you know,” said Nearly Headless Nick. “There was trouble in the kitchens earlier.”

“Why? Wha’ ‘appened?” said Harriet, through a sizable chunk of steak.

“Peeves, of course,” said Nearly Headless Nick, shaking his head, which wobbled dangerously. He pulled his ruff a little higher up on his neck. “The usual argument, you know. He wanted to attend the feast - well, it’s quite out of the question, you know what he’s like, utterly uncivilized, can’t see a plate of food without throwing it. We held a ghost’s council - the Fat Friar was all for giving him the chance – but most wisely, in my opinion, the Bloody Baron put his foot down.”

The Bloody Baron was the Slytherin ghost, a gaunt and silent specter covered in silver bloodstains. He was the only person at Hogwarts who could really control Peeves.

“Yeah, we thought Peeves seemed hacked off about something,” said Ronnie darkly. “So what did he do in the kitchens?”

“Oh the usual,” said Nearly Headless Nick, shrugging. “Wreaked havoc and mayhem. Pots and pans everywhere. Place swimming in soup. Terrified the house-elves out of their wits—”

Clang.

Hermes had knocked over his golden goblet. Pumpkin juice spread steadily over the tablecloth, staining several feet of white linen orange, but Hermes paid no attention.

“There are house-elves here?” he said, staring, horror-struck, at Nearly Headless Nick. “Here at Hogwarts?”

“Certainly,” said Nearly Headless Nick, looking surprised at his reaction. “The largest number in any dwelling in Britain, I believe. Over a hundred.”

“I’ve never seen one!” said Hermes.

“Well, they hardly ever leave the kitchen by day, do they?” said Nearly Headless Nick. “They come out at night to do a bit of cleaning... see to the fires and so on... I mean, you’re not supposed to see them, are you? That’s the mark of a good house-elf, isn’t it, that you don’t know it’s there?”

Hermes stared at her.

“But they get paid?” he said. “They get holidays, don’t they? And - and sick leave, and pensions, and everything?”

Nearly Headless Nick chortled so much that his ruff slipped and his head flopped off, dangling on the inch or so of ghostly skin and muscle that still attached it to his neck.

“Sick leave and pensions?” he said, pushing his head back onto his shoulders and securing it once more with his ruff. “House-elves don’t want sick leave and pensions!”

Hermes looked down at his hardly touched plate of food, then put his knife and fork down upon it and pushed it away from him.

“Oh c’mon, ‘Er-me,” said Ronnie, accidentally spraying Harriet with bits of Yorkshire pudding. “Oops — sorry, ‘Arrie —” She swallowed. “You won’t get them sick leave by starving yourself!”

“Slave labor,” said Hermes, breathing hard through his nose. “That’s what made this dinner. Slave labor.”

And he refused to eat another bite.

The rain was still drumming heavily against the high, dark glass. Another clap of thunder shook the windows, and the stormy ceiling flashed, illuminating the golden plates as the remains of the first course vanished and were replaced, instantly, with puddings.

“Treacle tart, Hermes!” said Ronnie, deliberately wafting its smell toward him. “Spotted dick, look! Chocolate gateau!”

But Hermes gave her a look so reminiscent of Professor McGonagall that she gave up.

When the puddings too had been demolished, and the last crumbs had faded off the plates, leaving them sparkling clean, Ariana Dumbledore got to her feet again. The buzz of chatter filling the Hall ceased almost at once, so that only the howling wind and pounding rain could be heard.

“So!” said Dumbledore, smiling around at them all. “Now that we are all fed and watered,” (“Hmph!” said Hermes) “I must once more ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices.

“Mrs. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever- Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mrs. Filch’s office, if anybody would like to check it.”

The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched. She continued, “As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year.

“It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.”

“What?” Harriet gasped. She looked around at Frankie and Georgina, her fellow members of the Quidditch team. They were mouthing soundlessly at Dumbledore, apparently too appalled to speak. Dumbledore went on, “This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -”

But at that moment, there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.

A woman stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. She lowered her hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers’ table.

A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on her every other step. She reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermes gasped.

The lightning had thrown the woman’s face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harriet had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the woman’s eyes that made her frightening.

One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye - and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the woman’s head, so that all they could see was whiteness.

The stranger reached Dumbledore. She stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as her face, and Dumbhedore shook it, muttering words Harriet couldn’t hear. She seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook her head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the woman to the empty seat on her right-hand side.

The stranger sat down, shook her mane of dark gray hair out of her face, pulled a plate of sausages toward her, raised it to what was left of her nose, and sniffed it. She then took a small knife out of her pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. Her normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.

“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. “Professor Moody.”

It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students chapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody’s bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.

“Moody?” Harriet muttered to Ronnie. “Mad-Eye Moody? The one your mum went to help this morning?”

“Must be,” said Ronnie in a low, awed voice.

“What happened to her?” Hermes whispered. “What happened to her face?” 

“Dunno,” Ronnie whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.

Moody seemed totally indifferent to her less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of her, she reached again into her traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As she lifted her arm to drink, her cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harriet saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.

Dumbledore cleared her throat.

“As I was saying,” she said, smiling at the sea of students before her, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, “we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.”

“You’re JOKING!” said Frankie Prewett loudly.

The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody’s arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.

“I am not joking, Miss Prewett,” she said, “though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar.”

Professor McGonagall cleared his throat loudly.

“Er - but maybe this is not the time... no...” said Dumbledore, “where was I? Ah yes, the Triwizard Tournament... well, some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.

“The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities - until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued.”

“Death toll?” Hermes whispered, looking alarmed. But his anxiety did not seem to be shared by the majority of students in the Hall; many of them were whispering excitedly to one another, and Harriet herself was far more interested in hearing about the tournament than in worrying about deaths that had happened hundreds of years ago.

“There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.

“The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money.”

“I’m going for it!” Frankie Prewett hissed down the table, her face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. She was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing herself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, Harriet could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.

“Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,” she said, “the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age - that is to say, seventeen years or older - will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This” — Dumbledore raised her voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Prewett twins were suddenly looking furious - “is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.” Her light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Frankie’s and Georgina’s mutinous faces. “I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.

“The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!”

Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall.

“They can’t do that!” said Georgina Prewett, who had not joined the crowd moving toward the door, but was standing up and glaring at Dumbledore. “We’re seventeen in April, why can’t we have a shot?”

“They’re not stopping me entering,” said Frankie stubbornly, also scowling at the top table. “The champions’ll get to do all sorts of stuff you’d never be allowed to do normally. And a thousand Galleons prize money!”

“Yeah,” said Ronnie, a faraway look on her face. “Yeah, a thousand Galleons...” 

“Come on,” said Hermes, “we’ll be the only ones left here if you don’t move.”

Harriet, Ronnie, Hermes, Frankie, and Georgina set off for the entrance hall, Frankie and Georgina debating the ways in which Dumbledore might stop those who were under seventeen from entering the tournament.

“Who’s this impartial judge who’s going to decide who the champions are?” said Harriet.

“Dunno,” said Frankie, “but it’s them we’ll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, Georgina...”

“Dumbledore knows you’re not of age, though,” said Ronnie.

“Yeah, but she’s not the one who decides who the champion is, is she?” said Frankie shrewdly. “Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, she’ll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore’s trying to stop us giving our names.”

“People have died, though!” said Hermes in a worried voice as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase.

“Yeah,” said Frankie airily, “but that was years ago, wasn’t it? Anyway, where’s the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ronnie, what if we find out how to get ‘round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?”

“What d’you reckon?” Ronnie asked Harriet. “Be cool to enter, wouldn’t it? But I s’pose they might want someone older... Dunno if we’ve learned enough...”

“I definitely haven’t,” came Netta’s gloomy voice from behind Frankie and Georgina. “I expect my pa’d want me to try, though. He’s always going on about how I should be upholding the family honor. I’ll just have to — oops...”

Netta’s foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Netta’s memory was notoriously poor. Harriet and Ronnie seized her under the armpits and pulled her out, while a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily.

“Shut it, you,” said Ronnie, banging down its visor as they passed. They made their way up to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was concealed behind a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.

“Password?” she said as they approached.

“Balderdash,” said Georgina, “a prefect downstairs told me.”

The portrait swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall through which they all climbed. A crackling fire warmed the circular common room, which was full of squashy armchairs and tables. Hermes cast the merrily dancing flames a dark look, and Harriet distinctly heard him mutter “Slave labor” before bidding them good night and disappearing through the doorway to the boys’ dormitory.

Harriet, Ronnie, and Netta climbed up the last, spiral staircase until they reached their own dormitory, which was situated at the top of the tower. Five four-poster beds with deep crimson hangings stood against the walls, each with its owner’s trunk at the foot. Dinah and Sinead were already getting into bed; Sinead had pinned her Ireland rosette to her headboard, and Dinah had tacked up a poster of Viktoria Krum over her bedside table. Her old poster of the West Ham football team was pinned right next to it.

“Mental,” Ronnie sighed, shaking her head at the completely stationary soccer players.

Harriet, Ronnie, and Netta got into their pajamas and into bed. Someone - a house-elf, no doubt - had placed warming pans between the sheets. It was extremely comfortable, lying there in bed and listening to the storm raging outside.

“I might go in for it, you know,” Ronnie said sleepily through the darkness, “if Frankie and Georgina find out how to... the tournament... you never know, do you?”

“S’pose not...”

Harriet rolled over in bed, a series of dazzling new pictures forming in her mind’s eye... she had hoodwinked the impartial judge into believing she was seventeen... she had become Hogwarts champion... she was standing on the grounds, her arms raised in triumph in front of the whole school, all of whom were applauding and screaming... she had just won the Triwizard Tournament. Chen’s face stood out particularly clearly in the blurred crowd, his face glowing with admiration... Harriet grinned into her pillow, exceptionally glad that Ronnie couldn’t see what she could.


	13. Mad-Eye Moody

The storm had blown itself out by the following morning, though the ceiling in the Great Hall was still gloomy; heavy clouds of pewter gray swirled overhead as Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes examined their new course schedules at breakfast. A few seats along, Frankie, Georgina, and Leah Jordan were discussing magical methods of aging themselves and bluffing their way into the Triwizard Tournament.

“Today’s not bad... outside all morning,” said Ronnie, who was running her finger down the Monday column of her schedule. “Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures... damn it, we’re still with the Slytherins...”

“Double Divination this afternoon,” Harriet groaned, looking down. Divination was her least favorite subject, apart from Potions. Professor Trelawney kept predicting Harriet’s death, which she found extremely annoying.

“You should have given it up like me, shouldn’t you?” said Hermes briskly, buttering himself some toast. “Then you’d be doing something sensible like Arithmancy.”

“You’re eating again, I notice,” said Ronnie, watching Hermes adding liberal amounts of jam to his toast too.

“I’ve decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights,” said Hermes haughtily. 

“Yeah... and you were hungry,” said Ronnie, grinning.

There was a sudden rustling noise above them, and a hundred owls came soaring through the open windows carrying the morning mail. Instinctively, Harriet looked up, but there was no sign of white among the mass of brown and gray. The owls circled the tables, looking for the people to whom their letters and packages were addressed. A large tawny owl soared down to Netta Fortesque and deposited a parcel into her lap - Netta almost alway forgot to pack something. On the other side of the Hall Dahlia Black’s eagle owl had landed on her shoulder, carrying what looked like her usual supply of sweets and cakes from home. Trying to ignore the sinking feeling of disappointment in her stomach, Harriet returned to her porridge. Was it possible that something had happened to Hedwig, and that Siri hadn’t even got her letter?

Her preoccupation lasted all the way across the sodden vegetable patch until they arrived in greenhouse three, but here she was distracted by Professor Sprout showing the class the ugliest plants Harriet had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid.

“Bubotubers,” Professor Sprout told them briskly. “They need squeezing. You will collect the pus -”

“The what?” said Sinead Finnigan, sounding revolted.

“Pus, Finnigan, pus,” said Professor Sprout, “and it’s extremely valuable, so don’t waste it. You will collect the pus, I say, in these bottles. Wear your dragon-hide gloves; it can do funny things to the skin when undiluted, bubotuber pus.” 

Squeezing the bubotubers was disgusting, but oddly satisfying. As each swelling was popped, a large amount of thick yellowish-green liquid burst forth, which smelled strongly of petrol. They caught it in the bottles as Professor Sprout had indicated, and by the end of the lesson had collected several pints. 

“This’ll keep Master Pomfrey happy,” said Professor Sprout, stoppering the last bottle with a cork. “An excellent remedy for the more stubborn forms of acne, bubotuber pus. Should stop students resorting to desperate measures to rid themselves of pimples.”

“Like poor Elliot Midgen,” said Hancock Abbot, a Hufflepuff, in a hushed voice. “He tried to curse his off.”

“Silly boy,” said Professor Sprout, shaking his head. “But Master Pomfrey fixed his nose back on in the end.”

A booming bell echoed from the castle across the wet grounds, signaling the end of the lesson, and the class separated; the Hufflepuffs climbing the stone steps for Transfiguration, and the Gryffindors heading in the other direction, down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s small wooden cabin, which stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.  
Hagrid was standing outside her hut, one hand on the collar of her enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at her feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at her collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.

“Mornin’!” Hagrid said, grinning at Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes. “Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this - Blast-Ended Skrewts!”

“Come again?” said Ronnie.

Hagrid pointed down into the crates.

“Eurgh!” squealed Leroy Brown, jumping backward. “Eurgh” just about summed up the Blast-Ended Skrewts in Harriet’s opinion. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one aother, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.

“On’y jus’ hatched,” said Hagrid proudly, “so yeh’ll be able ter raise ‘em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!”

“And why would we want to raise them?” said a cold voice.

The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Dahlia Black. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at her words.

Hagrid looked stumped at the question.

“I mean, what do they do?” asked Black. “What is the point of them?”

Hagrid opened her mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds’ pause, then she said roughly, “Tha’s next lesson, Black. Yer jus’ feedin’ ‘em today. Now, yeh’ll wan’ ter try ‘em on a few diff’rent things - I’ve never had ‘em before, not sure what they’ll go fer - I got ant eggs an’ frog livers an’ a bit o’ grass snake - just try ‘em out with a bit of each.”

“First pus and now this,” muttered Sinead.  
Nothing but deep affection for Hagrid could have made Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes pick up squelchy handfuls of frog liver and lower them into the crates to tempt the Blast-Ended Skrewts. Harriet couldn’t suppress the suspicion that the whole thing was entirely pointless, because the skrewts didn’t seem to have mouths.

“Ouch!” yelled Dinah Thomas after about ten minutes. “It got me.”

Hagrid hurried over to her, looking anxious.

“Its end exploded!” said Dinah angrily, showing Hagrid a burn on her hand.

“Ah, yeah, that can happen when they blast off,” said Hagrid, nodding.

“Eurgh!” said Leroy Brown again. “Eurgh, Hagrid, what’s that pointy thing on it?”

“Ah, some of ‘em have got stings,” said Hagrid enthusiastically (Leroy quickly withdrew his hand from the box). “I reckon they’re the males... The females’ve got sorta sucker things on their bellies... I think they might be ter suck blood.”

“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” said Black sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”

“Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,” Hermes snapped. “Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?”

Harriet and Ronnie grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes knew only too well - she had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better.

“Well, at least the skrewts are small,” said Ronnie as they made their way back up to the castle for lunch an hour later.

“They are now,” said Hermes in an exasperated voice, “but once Hagrid’s found out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long.”

“Well, that won’t matter if they turn out to cure seasickness or something, will it?” said Ronnie, grinning slyly at him.

“You know perfectly well I only said that to shut Black up,” said Hermes. “As a matter of fact I think she’s right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all.”

They sat down at the Gryffindor table and helped themselves to lamb chops and potatoes. Hermes began to eat so fast that Harriet and Ronnie stared at him.

“Er - is this the new stand on elf rights?” said Ronnie. “You’re going to make yourself puke instead?”

“No,” said Hermes, with as much dignity as he could muster with his mouth bulging with sprouts. “I just want to get to the library.”

“What?” said Ronnie in disbelief. “Hermes - it’s the first day back! We haven’t even got homework yet!”

Hermes shrugged and continued to shovel down his food as though he had not eaten for days. Then he leapt to his feet, said, “See you at dinner!” and departed at high speed.

When the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon lessons, Harriet and Ronnie set off for North Tower where, at the top of a tightly spiraling staircase, a silver stepladder led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling, and the room where Professor Trelawney lived.

The familiar sweet perfume spreading from the fire met their nostrils as they emerged at the top of the stepladder. As ever, the curtains were all closed; the circular room was bathed in a dim reddish light cast by the many lamps, which were all draped with scarves and shawls. Harriet and Ronnie walked through the mass of occupied chintz chairs and poufs that cluttered the room, and sat down at the same small circular table.

“Good day,” said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Harriet, making her jump.

A very thin man with enormous glasses that made his eyes appear far too large for his face, Professor Trelawney was peering down at Harriet with the tragic expression he always wore whenever he saw her. The usual large amount of beads, chains, and bangles glittered upon his person in the firelight.

“You are preoccupied, my dear,” he said mournfully to Harriet. “My inner eye sees past your brave face to the troubled soul within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times ahead for you, alas... most difficult... I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass... and perhaps sooner than you think...”

His voice dropped almost to a whisper. Ronnie rolled her eyes at Harriet, who looked stonily back. Professor Trelawney swept past them and seated himself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class. Leroy Brown and Paavan Patil, who deeply admired Professor Trelawney, were sitting on poufs very close to him.

“My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars,” he said. “The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle...”

But Harriet’s thoughts had drifted. The perfumed fire always made her feel sleepy and dull-witted, and Professor Trelawney’s rambling talks on fortune-telling never held her exactly spellbound - though she couldn’t help thinking about what he had just said to her. ‘I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass... ’

But Hermes was right, Harriet thought irritably, Professor Trelawney really was an old fraud. She wasn’t dreading anything at the moment at all... well, unless you counted her fears that Siri had been caught... but what did Professor Trelawney know? She had long since come to the conclusion that his brand of fortunetelling was really no more than lucky guesswork and a spooky manner.

Except, of course, for that time at the end of last term, when he had made the prediction about Voldemort rising again... and Dumbledore herself had said that she thought that trance had been genuine, when Harriet had described it to her.

“Harriet!” Ronnie muttered.

“What?” Harriet looked around; the whole class was staring at her. She sat up straight; she had been almost dozing off, lost in the heat and her thoughts.

“I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn,” said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in his voice at the fact that she had obviously not been hanging on his words.

“Born under - what, sorry?” said Harriet.

“Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn!” said Professor Trelawney, sounding definitely irritated that she wasn’t riveted by this news. “I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth... Your dark hair... your mean stature... tragic losses so young in life... I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?”

“No,” said Harriet, “I was born in July.”

Ronnie hastily turned her laugh into a hacking cough.

Half an hour later, each of them had been given a complicated circular chart, and was attempting to fill in the position of the planets at their moment of birth. It was dull work, requiring much consultation of timetables and calculation of angles.

“I’ve got two Neptunes here,” said Harriet after a while, frowning down at her piece of parchment, “that can’t be right, can it?”

“Aaaaah,” said Ronnie, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, “when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Harriet...”

Sinead and Dinah, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly, though not loudly enough to mask the excited squeals from Leroy Briwn - “Oh Professor, look! I think I’ve got an unaspected planet! Oooh, which one’s that, Professor?”

“It is Uranus, my dear,” said Professor Trelawney, peering down at the chart. 

“Can I have a look at Uranus too, Leroy?” said Ronnie.

Most unfortunately, Professor Trelawney heard her, and it was this, perhaps, that made him give them so much homework at the end of the class.

“A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart,” he snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than his usual airy-fairy self. “I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!”

“Miserable old bat,” said Ronnie bitterly as they joined the crowds descending the staircases back to the Great Hall and dinner. “That’ll take all weekend, that will...”

“Lots of homework?” said Hermes brightly, catching up with them. “Professor Vector didn’t give us any at all!”

“Well, bully for Professor Vector,” said Ronnie moodily.

They reached the entrance hall, which was packed with people queuing for dinner. They had just joined the end of the line, when a loud voice rang out behind them.

“Prewett! Hey, Prewett!”

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes turned. Black, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing there, each looking thoroughly pleased about something.

“What?” said Ronnie shortly.

“Your mum’s in the paper, Prewett!” said Black, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear. “Listen to this!”

‘FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC

It seems as though the Ministry of Magic’s troubles are not yet at an end, writes Peter Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Annette Prewett, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.’

Black looked up.

“Imagine them not even getting her name right, Prewett. It’s almost as though she’s a complete nonentity, isn’t it?” she crowed.

Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Black straightened the paper with a flourish and read on:

‘Annette Prewett, who was charged with possession of a flying car two years ago, was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers (“policemen”) over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mrs. Prewett appears to have rushed to the aid of “Mad-Eye” Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Prewett found, upon arrival at Mrs. Moody’s heavily guarded house, that Mrs. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mrs. Prewett was forced to modify several memories before she could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why she had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene.’

“And there’s a picture, Prewett!” said Black, flipping the paper over and holding it up. “A picture of your parents outside their house - if you can call it a house! Your father could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t he?”

Ronnie was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at her. 

“Get stuffed, Black,” said Harriet. “C’mon, Ronnie...”

“Oh yeah, you were staying with them this summer, weren’t you, Evans?” sneered Black. “So tell me, is her father really that porky, or is it just the picture?”

“You know your father, Black?” said Harriet - both she and Hermes had grabbed the back of Ronnie’s robes to stop her from launching herself at Black - “that expression he’s got, like he’s got dung under his nose? Has he always looked like that, or was it just because you were with him?”

Black’s pale face went slightly pink.

“Don’t you dare insult my father, Evans.”

“Keep your fat mouth shut, then,” said Harriet, turning away. 

BANG!

Several people screamed - Harriet felt something white-hot graze the side of her face - she plunged her hand into her robes for her wand, but before she’d even touched it, she heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall.

“OH NO YOU DON’T, LASSIE!”

Harriet spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. Her wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Black had been standing. There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Harriet — at least, her normal eye was looking at Harriet; the other one was pointing into the back of her head.

“Did she get you?” Moody growled. Her voice was low and gravelly. 

“No,” said Harriet, “missed.”

“LEAVE IT!” Moody shouted.

“Leave - what?” Harriet said, bewildered.

“Not you - her!” Moody growled, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody’s rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of her head.

Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.

“I don’t think so!” roared Moody, pointing her wand at the ferret again - it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.

“I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,” growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. “Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do...”

The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly. 

“Never - do - that - again -” said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again.

“Professor Moody!” said a shocked voice.

Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with his arms full of books.

“Hello, Professor McGonagall,” said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.

“What - what are you doing?” said Professor McGonagall, his eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air.

“Teaching,” said Moody.

“Teach - Moody, is that a student?” shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of his arms.

“Yep,” said Moody.

“No!” cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out his wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Dahlia Black had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with her sleek blond hair all over her now brilliantly pink face. She got to her feet, wincing.

“Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!” said Professor McGonagall wealdy. “Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?”

“She might’ve mentioned it, yeah,” said Moody, scratching her chin unconcernedly, “but I thought a good sharp shock -”

“We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender’s Head of House!” 

“I’ll do that, then,” said Moody, staring at Black with great dislike.

Black, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words “my mother” were distinguishable.

“Oh yeah?” said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of her wooden leg echoing around the hall. “Well, I know your mother of old, girl... You tell her Moody’s keeping a close eye on her daughter... you tell her that from me... Now, your Head of House’ll be Prince, will it?”

“Yes,” said Black resentfully.

“Another old friend,” growled Moody. “I’ve been looking forward to a chat with old Prince... Come on, you...”

And she seized Black’s upper arm and marched her off toward the dungeons.

Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved his wand at his fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into his arms.

“Don’t talk to me,” Ronnie said quietly to Harriet and Hermes as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened.

“Why not?” said Hermes in surprise.

“Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,” said Ronnie, her eyes closed and an uplifted expression on her face. “Dahlia Black, the amazing bouncing ferret.”

Harriet and Hermes both laughed, and Hermes began doling beef casserole onto each of their plates.

“She could have really hurt Black, though,” he said. “It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it -”

“Hermes!” said Ronnie furiously, her eyes snapping open again, “you’re ruining the best moment of my life!”

Hermes made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again.

“Don’t tell me you’re going back to the library this evening?” said Harriet, watching him.

“Got to,” said Hermes thickly. “Loads to do.”

“But you told us Professor Vector -”

“It’s not schoolwork,” he said. Within five minutes, he had cleared his plate and departed. No sooner had he gone than his seat was taken by Frankie Prewett.

“Moody!” she said. “How cool is she?”

“Beyond cool,” said Georgina, sitting down opposite Frankie. 

“Supercool,” said the twins’ best friend, Leah Jordan, sliding into the seat beside Georgina. “We had her this afternoon,” she told Harriet and Ronnie.

“What was it like?” said Harriet eagerly.

Frankie, Georgina, and Leah exchanged looks full of meaning. “Never had a lesson like it,” said Frankie.

“She knows, man,” said Leah.

“Knows what?” said Ronnie, leaning forward.

“Knows what it’s like to be out there doing it,” said Georgina impressively. 

“Doing what?” said Harriet.

“Fighting the Dark Arts,” said Frankie.

“She’s seen it all,” said Georgina.

“Mazing,” said Leah.

Ronnie dived into her bag for her schedule.

“We haven’t got her till Thursday!” she said in a disappointed voice.


	14. The Unforgivable Curses

The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Netta melting her sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Prince, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Netta detention, and Netta returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.

“You know why Prince’s in such a foul mood, don’t you?” said Ronnie to Harriet as they watched Hermes teaching Netta a Scouring Charm to remove the frog guts from under her fingernails.

“Yeah,” said Harriet. “Moody.”

It was common knowledge that Prince really wanted the Dark Arts job, and she had now failed to get it for the fourth year running. Prince had disliked all of their previous Dark Arts teachers, and shown it - but she seemed strangely wary of displaying overt animosity to Mad-Eye Moody. Indeed, whenever Harriet saw the two of them together - at mealtimes, or when they passed in the corridors - she had the distinct impression that Prince was avoiding Moody’s eye, whether magical or normal.

“I reckon Prince’s a bit scared of her, you know,” Harriet said thoughtfully.

“Imagine if Moody turned Prince into a horned toad,” said Ronnie, her eyes misting over, “and bounced her all around her dungeon...”

The Gryffindor fourth years were looking forward to Moody’s first lesson so much that they arrived early on Thursday lunchtime and queued up outside her classroom before the bell had even rung. The only person missing was Hermes, who turned up just in time for the lesson.

“Been in the -”

“Library.” Harriet finished his sentence for him. “C’mon, quick, or we won’t get decent seats.”

They hurried into three chairs right in front of the teacher’s desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon they heard Moody’s distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and she entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see her clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath her robes.

“You can put those away,” she growled, stumping over to her desk and sitting down, “those books. You won’t need them.”

They returned the books to their bags, Ronnie looking excited.

Moody took out a register, shook her long mane of grizzled gray hair out of her twisted and scarred face, and began to call out names, her normal eye moving steadily down the list while her magical eye swiveled around, fixing upon each student as he or she answered.

“Right then,” she said, when the last person had declared themselves present, “I’ve had a letter from Professor Howell about this class. Seems you’ve had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures - you’ve covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?”

There was a general murmur of assent.

“But you’re behind - very behind - on dealing with curses,” said Moody. “So I’m here to bring you up to scratch on what wizards can do to each other. I’ve got one year to teach you how to deal with Dark -”

“What, aren’t you staying?” Ronnie blurted out.

Moody’s magical eye spun around to stare at Ronnie; Ronnie looked extremely apprehensive, but after a moment Moody smiled - the first time Harriet had seen her do so. The effect was to make her heavily scarred face look more twisted and contorted than ever, but it was nevertheless good to know that she ever did anything as friendly as smile. Ronnie looked deeply relieved.

“You’ll be Arlene Prewett’s son, eh?” Moody said. “Your mother got me out of a very tight corner a few days ago... Yeah, I’m staying just the one year. Special favor to Dumbledore... One year, and then back to my quiet retirement.”

She gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped her gnarled hands together.

“So - straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I’m supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I’m not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you’re in the sixth year. You’re not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore’s got a higher opinion of your nerves, she reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you’re up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you’ve never seen? A witch who’s about to put an illegal curse on you isn’t going to tell you what she’s about to do. She’s not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to put that away, Mr. Brown, when I’m talking.”

Leroy jumped and blushed. He had been showing Paavan his completed horoscope under the desk. Apparently Moody’s magical eye could see through solid wood, as well as out of the back of her head.

“So... do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?”

Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ronnie’s and Hermes’. Moody pointed at Ronnie, though her magical eye was still fixed on Leroy.

“Er,” said Ronnie tentatively, “my mum told me about one... Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?”

“Ah, yes,” said Moody appreciatively. “Your mother would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse.”

Moody got heavily to her mismatched feet, opened her desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Harriet felt Ronnie recoil slightly next to her - Ronnie hated spiders. Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of her hand so that they could all see it. She then pointed her wand at it and muttered, “Imperio!”

The spider leapt from Moody’s hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a back flip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked her wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance. Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.

“Think it’s funny, do you?” she growled. “You’d like it, would you, if I did it to you?” 

The laughter died away almost instantly.

“Total control,” said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. “I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...”

Ronnie gave an involuntary shudder.

“Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse,” said Moody, and Harriet knew she was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. “Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.

“The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I’ll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone’s got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” she barked, and everyone jumped.

Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar. “Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?”

Hermes’ hand flew into the air again and so, to Harriet’s slight surprise, did Netta’s. The only class in which Netta usually volunteered information was Herbology which was easily her best subject. Netta looked surprised at her own daring.

“Yes?” said Moody, her magical eye rolling right over to fix on Netta

“There’s one - the Cruciatus Curse,” said Netta in a small but distinct voice. Moody was looking very intently at Netta, this time with both eyes.

“Your name’s Fortesque?” she said, her magical eye swooping down to check the register again.

Netta nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, she reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.

“The Cruciatus Curse,” said Moody. “Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea,” she said, pointing her wand at the spider. “Engorgio!”

The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense, Ronnie pushed her chair backward, as far away from Moody’s desk as possible. Moody raised her wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, “Crucio!”

At once, the spider’s legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Harriet was sure that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove her wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently - “Stop it!” Hermes said shrilly.  
Harriet looked around at him. He was looking, not at the spider, but at Netta, and Harriet, following her gaze, saw that Netta’s hands were clenched upon the desk in front of her, his knuckles white, her eyes wide and horrified. Moody raised her wand. The spider’s legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.

“Reducio,” Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. She put it back into the jar.

“Pain,” said Moody softly. “You don’t need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse... That one was very popular once too.

“Right... anyone know any others?”

Harriet looked around. From the looks on everyone’s faces, she guessed they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. Hermes’ hand shook slightly as, for the third time, he raised it into the air.

“Yes?” said Moody, looking at him.

“Avada Kedavra,” Hermes whispered.

Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ronnie .

“Ah,” said Moody, another slight smile twisting her lopsided mouth. “Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra... the Killing Curse.”

She put her hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody’s fingers, but she trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.

Moody raised her wand, and Harriet felt a sudden thrill of foreboding. “Avada Kedavra!” Moody roared.

There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ronnie had thrown herself backward and almost toppled off her seat as the spider skidded toward her.

Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.

“Not nice,” she said calmly. “Not pleasant. And there’s no countercurse. There’s no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and she’s sitting right in front of me.”

Harriet felt her face redden as Moody’s eyes (both of them) looked into her own. She could feel everyone else looking around at her too. Harriet stared at the blank blackboard as though fascinated by it, but not really seeing it at all...

So that was how her parents had died... exactly like that spider. Had they been unblemished and unmarked too? Had they simply seen the flash of green light and heard the rush of speeding death, before life was wiped from their bodies?

Harriet had been picturing her parents’ deaths over and over again for three years now, ever since she’d found out they had been murdered, ever since she’d found out what had happened that night: Wormtail had betrayed her parents’ whereabouts to Voldemort, who had come to find them at their cottage. How Voldemort had killed Harriet’s mother first. How Jane Evans had tried to hold her off, while she shouted at her husband to take Harriet and run... Voldemort had advanced on Leslie Evans, told him to move aside so that he could kill Harriet... how he had begged him to kill him instead, refused to stop shielding his daughter... and so Voldemort had murdered him too, before turning his wand on Harriet.

Harriet knew these details because she had heard her parents’ voices when she had fought the dementors last year - for that was the terrible power of the dementors: to force their victims to relive the worst memories of their lives, and drown, powerless, in their own despair.

Moody was speaking again, from a great distance, it seemed to Harriet. With a massive effort, she pulled herself back to the present and listened to what Moody was saying.

“Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not here to teach you how to do it.

“Now, if there’s no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you’ve got to know. You’ve got to appreciate what the worst is. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you’re facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” she roared, and the whole class jumped again.

“Now... those three curses - Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus - are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That’s what you’re up against. That’s what I’ve got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills... copy this down...”

They spent the rest of the lesson taking notes on each of the Unforgivable Curses. No one spoke until the bell rang - but when Moody had dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices –

“Did you see it twitch?”

“- and when she killed it – just like that!”

They were talking about the lesson, Harriet thought, as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but she hadn’t found it very entertaining - and nor, it seemed, had Hermes.

“Hurry up,” he said tensely to Harriet and Ronnie. 

“Not the ruddy library again?” said Ronnie.

“No,” said Hermes curtly, pointing up a side passage. “Netta.” 

Netta was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite her with the same horrified, wide-eyed look she had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse.

“Netta?” Hermes said gently. Netta looked around.

“Oh hello,” she said, her voice much higher than usual. “Interesting lesson, wasn’t it? I wonder what’s for dinner, I’m - I’m starving, aren’t you?”

“Netta, are you all right?” said Hermes.

“Oh yes, I’m fine,” Netta gabbled in the same unnaturally high voice. “Very interesting dinner - I mean lesson - what’s for eating?”

Ronnie gave Harriet a startled look.

“Netta, what -?”

But an odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping toward them. All four of them fell silent, watching her apprehensively, but when she spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.

“It’s all right, lassie,” she said to Netta. “Why don’t you come up to my office? Come on... we can have a cup of tea...”

Netta looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. She neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned her magical eye upon Harriet.

“You all right, are you, Evans?”

“Yes,” said Harriet, almost defiantly.

Moody’s blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Harriet. Then she said, “You’ve got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you’ve got to know. No point pretending... well... come on, Fortesque, I’ve got some books that might interest you.”

Netta looked pleadingly at Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, but they didn’t say anything, so Netta had no choice but to allow herself to be steered away, one of Moody’s gnarled hands on her shoulder.

“What was that about?” said Ronnie, watching Netta and Moody turn the corner. 

“I don’t know,” said Hermes, looking pensive.

“Some lesson, though, eh?” said Ronnie to Harriet as they set off for the Great Hall. “Frankie and Georgina were right, weren’t they? She really knows her stuff, Moody, doesn’t she? When she did Avada Kedavra, the way that spider just died, just snuffed it right -”

But Ronnie fell suddenly silent at the look on Harriet’s face and didn’t speak again until they reached the Great Hall, when she said she supposed they had better make a start on Professor Trelawney’s predictions tonight, since they would take hours.

Hermes did not join in with Harriet and Ronnie’s conversation during dinner, but ate furiously fast, and then left for the library again. Harriet and Ronnie walked back to Gryffindor Tower, and Harriet, who had been thinking of nothing else all through dinner, now raised the subject of the Unforgivable Curses herself.

“Wouldn’t Moody and Dumbledore be in trouble with the Ministry if they knew we’d seen the curses?” Harriet asked as they approached the Fat Lady.

“Yeah, probably,” said Ronnie. “But Dumbledore’s always done things her way, hasn’t she, and Moody’s been getting in trouble for years, I reckon. Attacks first and asks questions later - look at her dustbins. Balderdash.”

The Fat Lady swung forward to reveal the entrance hole, and they climbed into the Gryffindor common room, which was crowded and noisy.

“Shall we get our Divination stuff, then?” said Harriet. 

“I s’pose,” Ronnie groaned.

They went up to the dormitory to fetch their books and charts, to find Netta there alone, sitting on her bed, reading. She looked a good deal calmer than at the end of Moody’s lesson, though still not entirely normal. Her eyes were rather red.

“You all right, Netta?” Harriet asked her.

“Oh yes,” said Netta, “I’m fine, thanks. Just reading this book Professor Moody lent me...”

She held up the book: Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.

“Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I’m really good at Herbology,” Netta said.

There was a faint note of pride in her voice that Harriet had rarely heard there before. “She thought I’d like this.”

Telling Netta what Professor Sprout had said, Harriet thought, had been a very tactful way of cheering Netta up, for Netta very rarely heard that she was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Professor Howell would have done.

Harriet and Ronnie took their copies of Unfogging the Future back down to the common room, found a table, and set to work on their predictions for the coming month. An hour later, they had made very little progress, though their table was littered with bits of parchment bearing sums and symbols, and Harriet’s brain was as fogged as though it had been filled with the fumes from Professor Trelawney’s fire.

“I haven’t got a clue what this lot’s supposed to mean,” she said, staring down at a long list of calculations.

“You know,” said Ronnie, whose hair was on end because of all the times she had run her fingers through it in frustration, “I think it’s back to the old Divination standby.”

“What - make it up?”

“Yeah,” said Ronnie, sweeping the jumble of scrawled notes off the table, dipping her pen into some ink, and starting to write.

“Next Monday,” she said as she scribbled, “I am likely to develop a cough, owing to the unlucky conjunction of Mars and Jupiter.” She looked up at Harriet. “You know him - just put in loads of misery, he’ll lap it up.”

“Right,” said Harriet, crumpling up her first attempt and lobbing it over the heads of a group of chattering first years into the fire. “Okay... on Monday, I will be in danger of- er - burns.”

“Yeah, you will be,” said Ronnie darkly, “we’re seeing the skrewts again on Monday. Okay, Tuesday, I’ll... erm...”

“Lose a treasured possession,” said Harriet, who was flicking through Unfogging the Future for ideas.

“Good one,” said Ronnie, copying it down. “Because of... erm... Mercury. Why don’t you get stabbed in the back by someone you thought was a friend?”

“Yeah... cool...” said Harriet, scribbling it down, “because... Venus is in the twelfth house.” 

“And on Wednesday, I think I’ll come off worst in a fight.”

“Aaah, I was going to have a fight. Okay, I’ll lose a bet.”

“Yeah, you’ll be betting I’ll win my fight...”

They continued to make up predictions (which grew steadily more tragic) for another hour, while the common room around them slowly emptied as people went up to bed. Crookshanks wandered over to them, leapt lightly into an empty chair, and stared inscrutably at Harriet, rather as Hermes might look if he knew they weren’t doing their homework properly.

Staring around the room, trying to think of a kind of misfortune she hadn’t yet used, Harriet saw Frankie and Georgina sitting together against the opposite wall, heads together, quills out, poring over a single piece of parchment. It was most unusual to see Frankie and Georgina hidden away in a corner and working silently; they usually liked to be in the thick of things and the noisy center of attention. There was something secretive about the way they were working on the piece of parchment, and Harriet was reminded of how they had sat together writing something back at the Burrow. She had thought then that it was another order form for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, but it didn’t look like that this time; if it had been, they would surely have let Leah Jordan in on the joke. She wondered whether it had anything to do with entering the Triwizard Tournament.

As Harriet watched, Georgina shook her head at Frankie, scratched out something with her quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room, “No - that sounds like we’re accusing her. Got to be careful...”

Then Georgina looked over and saw Harriet watching her. Harriet grinned and quickly returned to her predictions - she didn’t want Georgina to think she was eavesdropping.

Shortly after that, the twins rolled up their parchment, said good night, and went off to bed. Frankie and Georgina had been gone ten minutes or so when the portrait hole opened and Hermes climbed into the common room carrying a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box whose contents rattled as he walked in the other. Crookshanks arched his back, purring.

“Hello,” he said, “I’ve just finished!”

“So have I!” said Ronnie triumphantly, throwing down her quill.

Hermes sat down, laid the things he was carrying in an empty armchair, and pulled Ronnie’s predictions toward him.

“Not going to have a very good month, are you?” he said sardonically as Crookshanks curled up in his lap.

“Ah well, at least I’m forewarned,” Ronnie yawned.   
“You seem to be drowning twice,” said Hermes.

“Oh am I?” said Ronnie, peering down at her predictions. “I’d better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff.”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit obvious you’ve made these up?” said Hermes.

“How dare you!” said Ronnie, in mock outrage. “We’ve been working like house-elves here!” 

Hermes raised his eyebrows.

“It’s just an expression,” said Ronnie hastily.

Harriet laid down her quill too, having just finished predicting her own death by decapitation. “What’s in the box?” she asked, pointing at it.

“Funny you should ask,” said Hermes, with a nasty look at Ronnie. He took off the lid and showed them the contents. Inside were about fifty badges, all of different colors, but all bearing the same letters: S. P. E.W.

“Spew?” said Harriet, picking up a badge and looking at it. “What’s this about?”

“Not spew,” said Hermes impatiently. “It’s S-P-E-W. Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.”

“Never heard of it,” said Ronnie.

“Well, of course you haven’t,” said Hermes briskly, “I’ve only just started it.”

“Yeah?” said Ronnie in mild surprise. “How many members have you got?”

“Well - if you two join - three,” said Hermes.

“And you think we want to walk around wearing badges saying ‘spew,’ do you?” said Ronnie.  
“S-P-E-W!” said Hermes hotly. “I was going to put Stop the Outrageous Abuse of Our Fellow Magical Creatures and Campaign for a Change in Their Legal Status - but it wouldn’t fit. So that’s the heading of our manifesto.”

He brandished the sheaf of parchment at them.

“I’ve been researching it thoroughly in the library. Elf enslavement goes back centuries. I can’t believe no one’s done anything about it before now.”

“Hermes - open your ears,” said Ronnie loudly. “They. Like. It. They like being enslaved!”

“Our short-term aims,” said Hermes, speaking even more loudly than Ronnie, and acting as though he hadn’t heard a word, “are to secure house-elves fair wages and working conditions. Our long-term aims include changing the law about nonwand use, and trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, because they’re shockingly underrepresented.”

“And how do we do all this?” Harriet asked.

“We start by recruiting members,” said Hermes happily. “I thought two Sickles to join - that buys a badge - and the proceeds can fund our leaflet campaign. You’re treasurer, Ronnie - I’ve got you a collecting tin upstairs - and Harriet, you’re secretary, so you might want to write down everything I’m saying now, as a record of our first meeting.”

There was a pause in which Hermes beamed at the pair of them, and Harriet sat, torn between exasperation at Hermes and amusement at the look on Ronnie’s face. The silence was broken, not by Ronnie, who in any case looked as though she was temporarily dumbstruck, but by a soft tap, tap on the window. Harriet looked across the now empty common room and saw, illuminated by the moonlight, a snowy owl perched on the windowsill.

“Hedwig!” she shouted, and she launched herself out of her chair and across the room to pull open the window.

Hedwig flew inside, soared across the room, and landed on the table on top of Harriet’s predictions.

“About time!” said Harriet, hurrying after her.

“She’s got an answer!” said Ronnie excitedly, pointing at the grubby piece of parchment tied to Hedwig’s leg.

Harriet hastily untied it and sat down to read, whereupon Hedwig fluttered onto her knee, hooting softly.

“What does it say?” Hermes asked breathlessly.

The letter was very short, and looked as though it had been scrawled in a great hurry. Harriet read it aloud:

‘Harriet -  
I’m flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore - they’re saying she’s got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means she’s reading the signs, even if no one else is. I’ll be in touch soon. My best to Ronnie and Hermes. Keep your eyes open, Harriet.  
Siri’

Harriet looked up at Ronnie and Hermes, who stared back at her.

“She’s flying north?” Hermes whispered. “She’s coming back?”

“Dumbledore’s reading what signs?” said Ronnie, looking perplexed. “Harriet - what’s up?” For Harriet had just hit herself in the forehead with her fist, jolting Hedwig out of her lap. 

“I shouldn’t’ve told her!” Harriet said furiously.

“What are you on about?” said Ronnie in surprise.

“It’s made her think she’s got to come back!” said Harriet, now slamming her fist on the table so that Hedwig landed on the back of Ronnie’s chair, hooting indignantly. “Coming back, because she thinks I’m in trouble! And there’s nothing wrong with me! And I haven’t got anything for you,” Harriet snapped at Hedwig, who was clicking her beak expectantly, “you’ll have to go up to the Owlery if you want food.”

Hedwig gave her an extremely offended look and took off for the open window, cuffing her around the head with her outstretched wing as she went.

“Harriet,” Hermes began, in a pacifying sort of voice.

“I’m going to bed,” said Harriet shortly. “See you in the morning.”

Upstairs in the dormitory she pulled on her pajamas and got into her four-poster, but she didn’t feel remotely tired.

If Siri came back and got caught, it would be hers, Harriet’s, fault. Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? A few seconds’ pain and she’d had to blab... If she’d just had the sense to keep it to herself.

She heard Ronnie come up into the dormitory a short while later, but did not speak to her. For a long time, Harriet lay staring up at the dark canopy of her bed. The dormitory was completely silent, and, had she been less preoccupied, Harriet would have realized that the absence of Netta’s usual snores meant that she was not the only one lying awake.


	15. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang

Early next morning, Harriet woke with a plan fully formed in her mind, as though her sleeping brain had been working on it all night. She got up, dressed in the pale dawn light, left the dormitory without waking Ronnie, and went back down to the deserted common room. Here she took a piece of parchment from the table upon which her Divination homework still lay and wrote the following letter:

‘Dear Siri,  
I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There’s no point coming back, everything’s fine here. Don’t worry about me, my head feels completely normal.  
Harriet’

She then climbed out of the portrait hole, up through the silent castle (held up only briefly by Peeves, who tried to overturn a large vase on her halfway along the fourth-floor corridor), finally arriving at the Owlery, which was situated at the top of West Tower.

The Owlery was a circular stone room, rather cold and drafty, because none of the windows had glass in them. The floor was entirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitated skeletons of mice and voles. Hundreds upon hundreds of owls of every breed imaginable were nestled here on perches that rose right up to the top of the tower, nearly all of them asleep, though here and there a round amber eye glared at Harriet. She spotted Hedwig nestled between a barn owl and a tawny, and hurried over to her, sliding a little on the dropping-strewn floor.

It took her a while to persuade her to wake up and then to look at her, as she kept shuffling around on her perch, showing her her tail. She was evidently still furious about her lack of gratitude the previous night. In the end, it was Harriet suggesting she might be too tired, and that perhaps she would ask Ronnie to borrow Pigwidgeon, that made her stick out her leg and allow her to tie the letter to it.

“Just find her, all right?” Harriet said, stroking her back as she carried her on her arm to one of the holes in the wall. “Before the dementors do.”

She nipped her finger, perhaps rather harder than she would ordinarily have done, but hooted softly in a reassuring sort of way all the same. Then she spread her wings and took off into the sunrise. Harriet watched her fly out of sight with the familiar feeling of unease back in her stomach. She had been so sure that Siri’s reply would alleviate her worries rather than increasing them.

“That was a lie, Harriet,” said Hermes sharply over breakfast, when she told him and Ronnie what she had done. “You didn’t imagine your scar hurting and you know it.”

“So what?” said Harriet. “She’s not going back to Azkaban because of me.”

“Drop it,” said Ronnie sharply to Hermes as he opened his mouth to argue some more, and for once, Hermes heeded her, and fell silent.

Harriet did her best not to worry about Siri over the next couple of weeks. True, she could not stop herself from looking anxiously around every morning when the post owls arrived, nor, late at night before she went to sleep, prevent herself from seeing horrible visions of Siri, cornered by dementors down some dark London street, but between those times she tried to keep her mind off her godmother. She wished she still had Quidditch to distract her; nothing worked so well on a troubled mind as a good, hard training session. On the other hand, their lessons were becoming more difficult and demanding than ever before, particularly Moody’s Defense Against the Dark Arts.

To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that she would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.

“But - but you said it’s illegal, Professor,” said Hermes uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of her wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. “You said - to use it against another human was -”

“Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like,” said Moody, her magical eye swiveling onto Hermes and fixing him with an eerie, unblinking stare. “If you’d rather learn the hard way - when someone’s putting it on you so they can control you completely - fine by me. You’re excused. Off you go.” She pointed one gnarled finger toward the door. Hermes went very pink and muttered something about not meaning that he wanted to leave. Harriet and Ronnie grinned at each other. They knew Hermes would rather eat bubotuber pus than miss such an important lesson.

Moody began to beckon students forward in turn and put the Imperius Curse upon them. Harriet watched as, one by one, her classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dinah Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Leroy Brown imitated a squirrel. Netta performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics she would certainly not have been capable of in her normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.

“Evans,” Moody growled, “you next.”

Harriet moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised her wand, pointed it at Harriet, and said, “Imperio!”

It was the most wonderful feeling. Harriet felt a floating sensation as every thought and worry in her head was wiped gently away, leaving nothing but a vague, untraceable happiness. She stood there feeling immensely relaxed, only dimly aware of everyone watching her.

And then she heard Mad-Eye Moody’s voice, echoing in some distant chamber of her empty brain: Jump onto the desk... jump onto the desk...

Harriet bent her knees obediently, preparing to spring. Jump onto the desk...

Why, though? Another voice had awoken in the back of her brain. Stupid thing to do, really, said the voice.

Jump onto the desk...

No, I don’t think I will, thanks, said the other voice, a little more firmly... no, I don’t really want to.

Jump! NOW!

The next thing Harriet felt was considerable pain. She had both jumped and tried to prevent herself from jumping - the result was that she’d smashed headlong into the desk knocking it over, and, by the feeling in her legs, fractured both her kneecaps.

“Now, that’s more like it!” growled Moody’s voice, and suddenly, Harriet felt the empty, echoing feeling in her head disappear. She remembered exactly what was happening, and the pain in her knees seemed to double.

“Look at that, you lot... Evans fought! She fought it, and she damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Evans, and the rest of you, pay attention - watch her eyes, that’s where you see it - very good, Evans, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!”

“The way he talks,” Harriet muttered as she hobbled out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class an hour later (Moody had insisted on putting Harriet through her paces four times in a row, untimely Harry could throw off the curse entirely), “you’d think we were all going to be attacked any second.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Ronnie, who was skipping on every alternate step. She had had much more difficulty with the curse than Harriet, though Moody assured her the effects would wear off by lunchtime. “Talk about paranoid...” Ronnie glanced nervously over her shoulder to check that Moody was definitely out of earshot and went on. “No wonder they were glad to get shot of her at the Ministry. Did you hear her telling Sinead what she did to that witch who shouted ‘Boo’ behind her on April Fools’ Day? And when are we supposed to read up on resisting the Imperius Curse with everything else we’ve got to do?”

All the fourth years had noticed a definite increase in the amount of work they were required to do this term. Professor McGonagall explained why, when the class gave a particularly loud groan at the amount of Transfiguration homework he had assigned.

“You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!” he told them, his eyes glinting dangerously behind his square spectacles. “Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer —”

“We don’t take O.W.L.s till fifth year!” said Dinah Thomas indignantly.

“Maybe not, Thomas, but believe me, you need all the preparation you can get! Mr. Granger remains the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you that your pincushion, Thomas, still curls up in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!”

Hermes, who had turned rather pink again, seemed to be trying not to look too pleased with himself.

Harriet and Ronnie were deeply amused when Professor Trelawney told them that they had received top marks for their homework in their next Divination class. He read out large portions of their predictions, commending them for their unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for them - but they were less amused when he asked them to do the same thing for the month after next; both of them were running out of ideas for catastrophes.

Meanwhile Professor Binns, the ghost who taught History of Magic, had them writing weekly essays on the goblin rebellions of the eighteenth century. Professor Prince was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as she had hinted that she might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.

Even Hagrid was adding to their workload. The Blast-Ended Skrewts were growing at a remarkable pace given that nobody had yet discovered what they ate. Hagrid was delighted, and as part of their “project,” suggested that they come down to her hut on alternate evenings to observe the skrewts and make notes on their extraordinary behavior.

“I will not,” said Dahlia Black flatly when Hagrid had proposed this with the air of Father Christmas pulling an extra-large toy out of his sack. “I see enough of these foul things during lessons, thanks.”

Hagrid’s smile faded off her face.

“Yeh’ll do wha’ yer told,” she growled, “or I’ll be takin’ a leaf outta Professor Moody’s book... I hear yeh made a good ferret, Black.”

The Gryffindors roared with laughter. Black flushed with anger, but apparently the memory of Moody’s punishment was still sufficiently painful to stop her from retorting. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes returned to the castle at the end of the lesson in high spirits; seeing Hagrid put down Black was particularly satisfying, especially because Black had done her very best to get Hagrid sacked the previous year.

When they arrived in the entrance hall, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ronnie, the tallest of the three, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two:

‘TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT  
THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O’CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY –‘

“Brilliant!” said Harriet. “It’s Potions last thing on Friday! Prince won’t have time to poison us all!”

‘STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.’

“Only a week away!” said Eleanor Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, her eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Celia knows? Think I’ll go and tell her...”

“Celia?” said Ronnie blankly as Eleanor hurried off.

“Diggory,” said Harriet. “She must be entering the tournament.”

“That idiot, Hogwarts champion?” said Ronnie as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.

“She’s not an idiot. You just don’t like her because she beat Gryffindor at Quidditch,” said Hermes. “I’ve heard she’s a really good student - and she’s a prefect.”

He spoke as though this settled the matter.

“You only like her because she’s beautiful,” said Ronnie scathingly.

“Excuse me, I don’t like people just because they’re beautiful!” said Hermes indignantly. Ronnie gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like “Lockhart!”

The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Harriet went: the Triwizard Tournament.

Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves. Harriet noticed too that the castle seemed to be undergoing an extra-thorough cleaning. Several grimy portraits had been scrubbed, much to the displeasure of their subjects, who sat huddled in their frames muttering darkly and wincing as they felt their raw pink faces. The suits of armor were suddenly gleaming and moving without squeaking, and Ardenne Filch, the caretaker, was behaving so ferociously to any students who forgot to wipe their shoes that she terrified a pair of first-year boys into hysterics. Other members of the staff seemed oddly tense too.

“Fortesque, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!” Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Netta had accidentally transplanted her own ears onto a cactus.

When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffiindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers’ table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes sat down beside Frankie and Georgina at the Gryffindor table. Once again, and most unusually, they were sitting apart from everyone else and conversing in low voices. Ronnie led the way over to them.

“It’s a bummer, all right,” Georgina was saying gloomily to Frankie. “But if she won’t talk to us in person, we’ll have to send her the letter after all. Or we’ll stuff it into her hand. She can’t avoid us forever.”

“Who’s avoiding you?” said Ronnie, sitting down next to them.

“Wish you would,” said Frankie, looking irritated at the interruption.

“What’s a bummer?” Ronnie asked Georgina.

“Having a nosy git like you for a sister,” said Georgina.

“You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?” Harriet asked. “Thought any more about trying to enter?”

“I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but he wasn’t telling,” said Georgina bitterly. “He just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon.”

“Wonder what the tasks are going to be?” said w thoughtfully. “You know, I bet we could do them, Harriet. We’ve done dangerous stuff before...”

“Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven’t,” said Frankie. “McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they’ve done the tasks.”

“Who are the judges?” Harriet asked.

“Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel,” said Hermes, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, “because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage.”

He noticed them all looking at him and said, with his usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books he had, “It’s all in Hogwarts, A History. Though, of course, that book’s not entirely reliable. A Revised History of Hogwarts would be a more accurate title. Or A Highly Biased and Selective History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the School.”

“What are you on about?” said Ronnie, though Harriet thought she knew what was coming.

“House-elves!” said Hermes, his eyes flashing. “Not once, in over a thousand pages, does Hogwarts, A History mention that we are all colluding in the oppression of a hundred slaves!”

Harriet shook her head and applied herself to her scrambled eggs. Hers and Ronnie’s lack of enthusiasm had done nothing whatsoever to curb Hermes’ determination to pursue justice for house-elves.

True, both of them had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep him quiet. Their Sickles had been wasted, however; if anything, they seemed to have made Hermes more vociferous. He had been badgering Harriet and Ronnie ever since, first to wear the badges, then to persuade others to do the same, and he had also taken to rattling around the Gryffindor common room every evening, cornering people and shaking the collecting tin under their noses.

“You do realize that your sheets are changed, your fires lit, your classrooms cleaned, and your food cooked by a group of magical creatures who are unpaid and enslaved?” he kept saying fiercely.

Some people, like Netta, had paid up just to stop Hermes from glowering at them. A few seemed mildly interested in what he had to say, but were reluctant to take a more active role in campaigning. Many regarded the whole thing as a joke. Ronnie now rolled hee eyes at the ceiling, which was flooding them all in autumn sunlight, and Frankie became extremely interested in her bacon (both twins had refused to buy a S.P.E.W. badge). Georgina, however, leaned in toward Hermes.

“Listen, have you ever been down in the kitchens, Hermes?”

“No, of course not,” said Hermes curtly, “I hardly think students are supposed to -”

“Well, we have,” said Georgina, indicating Frankie, “loads of times, to nick food. And we’ve met them, and they’re happy. They think they’ve got the best job in the world -”

“That’s because they’re uneducated and brainwashed!” Hermes began hotly, but his next few words were drowned out by the sudden whooshing noise from overhead, which announced the arrival of the post owls. Harriet looked up at once, and saw Hedwig soaring toward her. Hermes stopped talking abruptly; he and Ronnie watched Hedwig anxiously as she fluttered down onto Harriet’s shoulder, folded her wings, and held out her leg wearily.

Harriet pulled off Siri’s reply and offered Hedwig her bacon rinds, which she ate gratefully. Then, checking that Frankie and Georgina were safely immersed in further discussions about the Triwizard Tournament, Harriet read out Siri’s letter in a whisper to Ronnie and Hermes.

‘Nice try, Harriet.  
I’m back in the country and well hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that’s going on at Hogwarts. Don’t use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don’t worry about me, just watch out for yourself. Don’t forget what I said about your scar.  
Siri’

“Why d’you have to keep changing owls?” Ronnie asked in a low voice.

“Hedwig’ll attract too much attention,” said Hermes at once. “She stands out. A snowy owl that keeps returning to wherever she’s hiding... I mean, they’re not native birds, are they?”

Harriet rolled up the letter and slipped it inside her robes, wondering whether she felt more or less worried than before. She supposed that Siri managing to get back without being caught was something. She couldn’t deny either that the idea that Siri was much nearer was reassuring; at least she wouldn’t have to wait so long for a response every time she wrote.

“Thanks, Hedwig,” she said, stroking her. She hooted sleepily, dipped her beak briefly into her goblet of orange juice, then took off again, clearly desperate for a good long sleep in the Owlery.

There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter. When the bell rang early, Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.

The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines.

“Prewett, straighten your hat,” Professor McGonagall snapped at Ronnie. “Mr. Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair.”

Paavan scowled and removed a large ornamental hairband from the top of his head.

“Follow me, please,” said Professor McGonagall. “First years in front... no pushing...”

They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Harriet, standing between Ronnie and Hermes in the fourth row from the front, saw Denise Creevey positively shivering with anticipation among the other first years.

“Nearly six,” said Ronnie, checking her watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. “How d’you reckon they’re coming? The train?”

“I doubt it,” said Hermes.

“How, then? Broomsticks?” Harriet suggested, looking up at the starry sky.

“I don’t think so... not from that far away...”

“A Portkey?” Ronnie suggested. “Or they could Apparate - maybe you’re allowed to do it under seventeen wherever they come from?”

“You can’t Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, how often do I have to tell you?” said Hermes impatiently.

They scanned the darkening grounds excitedly, but nothing was moving; everything was still, silent, and quite as usual. Harriet was starting to feel cold. Age wished they’d hurry up... Maybe the foreign students were preparing a dramatic entrance... She remembered what Mrs. Prewett had said back at the campsite before the Quidditch World Cup: “always the same - we can’t resist showing off when we get together...”

And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where she stood with the other teachers - “Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!”

“Where?” said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions. “There!” yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.

Something large, much larger than a broomstick - or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks - was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time.

“It’s a dragon!” shrieked one of the first years, losing his head completely.

“Don’t be stupid... it’s a flying house!” said Denise Creevey.

Denise’s guess was closer... As the gigantic black shape skimmed over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest and the lights shining from the castle windows hit it, they saw a gigantic, powderblue, horse-drawn carriage, the size of a large house, soaring toward them, pulled through the air by a dozen winged horses, all palominos, and each the size of an elephant.

The front three rows of students drew backward as the carriage hurtled ever lower, coming in to land at a tremendous speed - then, with an almighty crash that made Netta jump backward onto a Slytherin fifth year’s foot, the horses’ hooves, larger than dinner plates, hit the ground. A second later, the carriage landed too, bouncing upon its vast wheels, while the golden horses tossed their enormous heads and rolled large, fiery red eyes.

Harriet just had time to see that the door of the carriage bore a coat of arms (two crossed, golden wands, each emitting three stars) before it opened. A boy in pale blue robes jumped down from the carriage, bent forward, fumbled for a moment with something on the carriage floor, and unfolded a set of golden steps. He sprang back respectfully. Then Harriet saw a shining, high-heeled black shoe emerging from the inside of the carriage - a shoe the size of a child’s sled - followed, almost immediately, by the largest man she had ever seen in her life. The size of the carriage, and of the horses, was immediately explained. A few people gasped.

Harriet had only ever seen one person as large as this man in her life, and that was Hagrid; she doubted whether there was an inch difference in their heights. Yet somehow - maybe simply because she was used to Hagrid - this man (now at the foot of the steps, and looking around at the waiting, wide-eyed crowd) seemed even more unnaturally large. As he stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, he was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. His hair was swept back from his face. He was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on his thick fingers.

Dumbledore started to clap; the students, following her lead, broke into applause too, many of them standing on tiptoe, the better to look at this man.

His face relaxed into a gracious smile and he walked forward toward Dumbledore, extending a glittering hand. Dumbledore, though tall herself, had barely to bend to kiss it.

“My dear Monsieur Maxime,” she said. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”

“Dumbly-dort,” said Monsieur Maxime in a deep voice. “I ‘ope I find you well?”

“In excellent form, I thank you,” said Dumbledore.

“My pupils,” said Monsieur Maxime, waving one of his enormous hands carelessly behind his.

Harriet, whose attention had been focused completely upon Monsieur Maxime, now noticed that about a dozen boys and girls, all, by the look of them, in their late teens, had emerged from the carriage and were now standing behind Monsieur Maxime. They were shivering, which was unsurprising, given that their robes seemed to be made of fine silk, and none of them were wearing cloaks. A few had wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads. From what Harriet could see of them (they were standing in Monsieur Maxime’s enormous shadow), they were staring up at Hogwarts with apprehensive looks on their faces.

“’As Karkaroff arrived yet?” Monsieur Maxime asked.

“She should be here any moment,” said Dumbledore. “Would you like to wait here and greet her or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?”

“Warm up, I think,” said Monsieur Maxime. “But ze ‘orses -”

“Our Care of Magical Creatures teacher will be delighted to take care of them,” said Dumbledore, “the moment she has returned from dealing with a slight situation that has arisen with some of her other - er - charges.”

“Skrewts,” Ronnie muttered to Harriet, grinning.

“My steeds require - er - forceful ‘andling,” said Monsieur Maxime, looking as though he doubted whether any Care of Magical Creatures teacher at Hogwarts could be up to the job. “Zey are very strong...”

“I assure you that Hagrid will be well up to the job,” said Dumbledore, smiling.

“Very well,” said Monsieur Maxime, bowing slightly. “Will you please inform zis ‘Agrid zat ze ‘orses drink only single-malt whiskey?”

“It will be attended to,” said Dumbledore, also bowing.

“Come,” said Monsieur Maxime imperiously to his students, and the Hogwarts crowd parted to allow him and his students to pass up the stone steps.

“How big d’you reckon Durmstrang’s horses are going to be?” Sinead Finnigan said, leaning around Leroy and Paavan to address Harriet and Ronnie.

“Well, if they’re any bigger than this lot, even Hagrid won’t be able to handle them,” said Harriet. “That’s if she hasn’t been attacked by her skrewts. Wonder what’s up with them?”

“Maybe they’ve escaped,” said Ronnie hopefully.

“Oh don’t say that,” said Hermes with a shudder. “Imagine that lot loose on the grounds...”

They stood, shivering slightly now, waiting for the Durmstrang party to arrive. Most people were gazing hopefully up at the sky.

For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by Monsieur Maxime’s huge horses snorting and stamping. But then - “Can you hear something?” said Ronnie suddenly. Harriet listened; a loud and oddly eerie noise was drifting toward them from out of the darkness: a muffled rumbling and sucking sound, as though an immense vacuum cleaner were moving along a riverbed.

“The lake!” yelled Leah Jordan, pointing down at it. “Look at the lake!”

From their position at the top of the lawns overlooking the grounds, they had a clear view of the smooth black surface of the water - except that the surface was suddenly not smooth at all. Some disturbance was taking place deep in the center; great bubbles were forming on the surface, waves were now washing over the muddy banks - and then, out in the very middle of the lake, a whirlpool appeared, as if a giant plug had just been pulled out of the lake’s floor... What seemed to be a long, black pole began to rise slowly out of the heart of the whirlpool... and then Harriet saw the rigging...

“It’s a mast!” she said to Ronnie and Hermes.

Slowly, magnificently, the ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the moonlight. It had a strangely skeletal look about it, as though it were a resurrected wreck, and the dim, misty lights shimmering at its portholes looked like ghostly eyes. Finally, with a great sloshing noise, the ship emerged entirely, bobbing on the turbulent water, and began to glide toward the bank. A few moments later, they heard the splash of an anchor being thrown down in the shallows, and the thud of a plank being lowered onto the bank.

People were disembarking; they could see their silhouettes passing the lights in the ship’s portholes. All of them, Harriet noticed, seemed to be built along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle... but then, as they drew nearer, walking up the lawns into the light streaming from the entrance hall, she saw that their bulk was really due to the fact that they were wearing cloaks of some kind of shaggy, matted fur. But the woman who was leading them up to the castle was wearing furs of a different sort: sleek and silver, like her hair.

“Dumbledore!” she called heartily as she walked up the slope. “How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?”

“Blooming, thank you, Professor Karkaroff,” Dumbledore replied. Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when she stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that she was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but her white hair was cut short. When she reached Dumbledore, she shook hands with both of her own.

“Dear old Hogwarts,” she said, looking up at the castle and smiling; her teeth were rather yellow, and Harriet noticed that her smile did not extend to her eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. “How good it is to be here, how good... Viktoria, come along, into the warmth... you don’t mind, Dumbledore? Viktoria has a slight head cold...”

Karkaroff beckoned forward one of her students. As the girl passed, w caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows. She didn’t need the punch on the arm Ronnie gave her, or the hiss in her ear, to recognize that profile.

“Harriet - it’s Krum!”


	16. The Goblet of Fire

“I don’t believe it!” Ronnie said, in a stunned voice, as the Hogwarts students filed back up the steps behind the party from Durmstrang. “Krum, Harriet! Viktoria Krum!”

“For heaven’s sake, Ronnie, she’s only a Quidditch player,” said Hermes.

“Only a Quidditch player?” Ronnie said, looking at him as though she couldn’t believe her ears. “Hermes - she’s one of the best Seekers in the world! I had no idea she was still at school!”

As they recrossed the entrance hall with the rest of the Hogwarts students heading for the Great Hall, Harriet saw Leah Jordan jumping up and down on the soles of her feet to get a better look at the back of Krum’s head. Several sixth-year boys were frantically searching their pockets as they walked - “Oh I don’t believe it, I haven’t got a single quill on me -”

“D’you think she’d sign my hat in liquorice?”

“Really,” Hermes said loftily as they passed the boys, now squabbling over the liquorice. 

“I’m getting her autograph if I can,” said Ronnie. “You haven’t got a quill, have you, Harriet?” 

“Nope, they’re upstairs in my bag,” said Harriet.

They walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down. Ronnie took care to sit on the side facing the doorway, because Krum and her fellow Durmstrang students were still gathered around it, apparently unsure about where they should sit. The students from Beauxbatons had chosen seats at the Ravenclaw table. They were looking around the Great Hall with glum expressions on their faces. Three of them were still clutching scarves and shawls around their heads.

“It’s not that cold,” said Hermes defensively. “Why didn’t they bring cloaks?”

“Over here! Come and sit over here!” Ronnie hissed. “Over here! Hermes, budge up, make a space -”

“What?”

“Too late,” said Ronnie bitterly. Viktoria Krum and her fellow Durmstrang students had settled themselves at the Slytherin table. Harriet could see Black, Crabbe, and Goyle looking very smug about this. SAs he watched, Black bent forward to speak to Krum.

“Yeah, that’s right, smarm up to her, Black,” said Ronnie scathingly. “I bet Krum can see right through her, though... bet she gets people fawning over her all the time... Where d’you reckon they’re going to sleep? We could offer her a space in our dormitory, Harriet... I wouldn’t mind giving her my bed, I could kip on a camp bed.”

Hermes snorted.

“They look a lot happier than the Beauxbatons lot,” said Harriet. The Durmstrang students were pulling off their heavy furs and looking up at the starry black ceiling with expressions of interest; a couple of them were picking up the golden plates and goblets and examining them, apparently impressed.

Up at the staff table, Filch, the caretaker, was adding chairs. She was wearing her mouldy old dress in honor of the occasion. Harriet was surprised to see that she added four chairs, two on either side of Dumbledore’s. “But there are only two extra people,” w said. “Why’s Filch putting out four chairs, who else is coming?”

“Eh?” said Ronnie vaguely. She was still staring avidly at Krum.

When all the students had entered the Hall and settled down at their House tables, the staff entered, filing up to the top table and taking their seats. Last in line were Professor Dumbledore, Professor Karkaroff, and Monsieur Maxime. When their headmaster appeared, the pupils from Beauxbatons leapt to their feet. A few of the Hogwarts students laughed. The Beauxbatons party appeared quite unembarrassed, however, and did not resume their seats until Monsieur Maxime had sat down on Dumbledore’s left-hand side. Dumbledore remained standing, and a silence fell over the Great Hall.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and - most particularly - guests,” said Dumbledore, beaming around at the foreign students. “I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable.”

One of the Beauxbatons boys still clutching a muffler around his head gave what was unmistakably a derisive laugh.

“No one’s making you stay!” Hermes whispered, bristling at him.

“The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast,” said Dumbledore. “I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!”

She sat down, and Harriet saw Karkaroff lean forward at once and engage her in conversation.

The plates in front of them filled with food as usual. The house-elves in the kitchen seemed to have pulled out all the stops; there was a greater variety of dishes in front of them than Harriet had ever seen, including several that were definitely foreign.

“What’s that?” said Ronnie, pointing at a large dish of some sort of shellfish stew that stood beside a large steak-and-kidney pudding.

“Bouillabaisse,” said Hermes.

“Bless you,” said Ronnie.

“It’s French,” said Hermes, “I had it on holiday summer before last. It’s very nice.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Ronnie, helping himself to black pudding.

The Great Hall seemed somehow much more crowded than usual, even though there were barely twenty additional students there; perhaps it was because their differently colored uniforms stood out so clearly against the black of the Hogwarts’ robes. Now that they had removed their furs, the Durmstrang students were revealed to be wearing robes of a deep bloodred.

Hagrid sidled into the Hall through a door behind the staff table twenty minutes after the start of the feast. She slid into her seat at the end and waved at Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes with a very heavily bandaged hand.

“Skrewts doing all right, Hagrid?” Harriet called. 

“Thrivin’,” Hagrid called back happily.

“Yeah, I’ll just bet they are,” said Ronnie quietly. “Looks like they’ve finally found a food they like, doesn’t it? Hagrid’s fingers.”

At that moment, a voice said, “Excuse me, are you wanting ze bouillabaisse?” It was the boy from Beauxbatons who had laughed during Dumbledore’s speech. He had finally removed his muffler. A sheet of silvery-blonde hair fell over one of his eyes. He had large, deep blue eyes, and very white, even teeth.

Ronnie went purple. She stared up at him, opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out except a faint gurgling noise.

“Yeah, have it,” said Harriet, pushing the dish toward the boy. 

“You ‘ave finished wiz it?”

“Yeah,” Ronnie said breathlessly. “Yeah, it was excellent.”

The boy picked up the dish and carried it carefully off to the Ravenclaw table. Ronnie was still goggling at the boy as though she had never seen one before. Harriet started to laugh. The sound seemed to jog Ronnie back to her senses.

“He’s a veela!” she said hoarsely to Harriet.

“Of course he isn’t!” said Hermes tartly. “I don’t see anyone else gaping at him like an idiot!”

But he wasn’t entirely right about that. As the boy crossed the Hall, many girls’ heads turned, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless, just like Ronnie.

“I’m telling you, that’s not a normal boy!” said Ronnie, leaning sideways so she could keep a clear view of him. “They don’t make them like that at Hogwarts!”

“They make them okay at Hogwarts,” said Harriet without thinking. Chen happened to be sitting only a few places away from the boy with the silvery hair.

“When you’ve both put your eyes back in,” said Hermes briskly, “you’ll be able to see who’s just arrived.”

He was pointing up at the staff table. The two remaining empty seats had just been filled. Lucinda Bagman was now sitting on Professor Karkaroff’s other side, while Mrs. Crouch, Penelope’s boss, was next to Monsieur Maxime. 

“What are they doing here?” said Harriet in surprise.

“They organized the Triwizard Tournament, didn’t they?” said Hermes. “I suppose they wanted to be here to see it start.”

When the second course arrived they noticed a number of unfamiliar desserts too. Ronnie examined an odd sort of pale blancmange closely, then moved it carefully a few inches to her right, so that it would be clearly visible from the Ravenclaw table. The boy who looked like a veela appeared to have eaten enough, however, and did not come over to get it.

Once the golden plates had been wiped clean, Dumbledore stood up again. A pleasant sort of tension seemed to fill the Hall now. Harriet felt a slight thrill of excitement, wondering what was coming. Several seats down from them, Frankie and Georgina were leaning forward, staring at Dumbledore with great concentration.

“The moment has come,” said Dumbledore, smiling around at the sea of upturned faces. “The Triwizard Tournament is about to start. I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket —”

“The what?” Harriet muttered. Ronnie shrugged.

“- just to clarify the procedure that we will be following this year. But first, let me introduce, for those who do not know them, Mrs. Barbra Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation” - there was a smattering of polite applause - “and Mrs. Lucinda Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports.”

There was a much louder round of applause for Bagman than for Crouch, perhaps because of her fame as a Beater, or simply because she looked so much more likable. She acknowledged it with a jovial wave of her hand. Barbra Crouch did not smile or wave when her name was announced. Remembering her in her neat suit at the Quidditch World Cup, Harriet thought she looked strange in wizard’s robes. Her severe parting looked very odd next to Dumbledore’s long white hair.

“Mrs. Bagman and Mrs. Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “and they will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff, and Monsieur Maxime on the panel that will judge the champions’ efforts.”

At the mention of the word “champions,” the attentiveness of the listening students seemed to sharpen. Perhaps Dumbledore had noticed their sudden stillness, for she smiled as she said, “The casket, then, if you please, Mrs. Filch.”

Filch, who had been lurking unnoticed in a far corner of the Hall, now approached Dumbledore carrying a great wooden chest encrusted with jewels. It looked extremely old. A murmur of excited interest rose from the watching students; Denise Creevey actually stood on her chair to see it properly, but, being so tiny, her head hardly rose above anyone else’s.

“The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mrs. Crouch and Mrs. Bagman,” said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before her, “and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways... their magical prowess - their daring - their powers of deduction - and, of course, their ability to cope with danger.”

At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.

“As you know, three champions compete in the tournament,” Dumbledore went on calmly, “one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire.”

Dumbledore now took out her wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames. Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it would be clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.

“Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet,” said Dumbledore. “Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.

“To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.

“Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all.”

“An Age Line!” Frankie Prewett said, her eyes glinting, as they all made their way across the Hall to the doors into the entrance hall. “Well, that should be fooled by an Aging Potion, shouldn’t it? And once your name’s in that goblet, you’re laughing - it can’t tell whether you’re seventeen or not!”

“But I don’t think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance,” said Hermes, “we just haven’t learned enough...”

“Speak for yourself,” said Georgina shortly. “You’ll try and get in, won’t you, Harriet?”

W thought briefly of Dumbledore’s insistence that nobody under seventeen should submit their name, but then the wonderful picture of herself winning the Triwizard Tournament filled her mind again... She wondered how angry Dumbledore would be if someone younger than seventeen did find a way to get over the Age Line.

“Where is she?” said Ronnie, who wasn’t listening to a word of this conversation, but looking through the crowd to see what had become of Krum. “Dumbledore didn’t say where the Durmstrang people are sleeping, did she?”

But this query was answered almost instantly; they were level with the Slytherin table now, and Karkaroff had just bustled up to her students.

“Back to the ship, then,” she was saying. “Viktoria, how are you feeling? Did you eat enough? Should I send for some mulled wine from the kitchens?”

Harriet saw Krum shake her head as she pulled her furs back on. “Professor, I vood like some vine,” said one of the other Durmstrang girls hopefully.

“I wasn’t offering it to you, Poliakoff,” snapped Karkaroff, her warmly maternal air vanishing in an instant. “I notice you have dribbled food all down the front of your robes again, disgusting girl -”

Karkaroff turned and led her students toward the doors, reaching them at exactly the same moment as Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes. Harriet stopped to let her walk through first.

“Thank you,” said Karkaroff carelessly, glancing at her. And then Karkaroff froze. She turned her head back to Harriet and stared at her as though she couldn’t believe her eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff’s eyes moved slowly up Harriet’s face and fixed upon her scar.

The Durmstrang students were staring curiously at Harriet too. Out of the corner of her eye, Harriet saw comprehension dawn on a few of their faces. The girl with food all down her front nudged the boy next to her and pointed openly at Harriet’s forehead.

“Yeah, that’s Harriet Evans,” said a growling voice from behind them.

Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on her staff, her magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster.

The color drained from Karkaroff’s face as Harriet watched. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over her.

“You!” she said, staring at Moody as though unsure she was really seeing her.

“Me,” said Moody grimly. “And unless you’ve got anything to say to Evans, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You’re blocking the doorway.”

It was true; half the students in the Hall were now waiting behind them, looking over one another’s shoulders to see what was causing the holdup.

Without another word, Professor Karkaroff swept her students away with her. Moody watched her until she was out of sight, her magical eye fixed upon her back, a look of intense dislike upon her mutilated face.

As the next day was Saturday, most students would normally have breakfasted late. Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, however, were not alone in rising much earlier than they usually did on weekends. When they went down into the entrance hall, they saw about twenty people milling around it, some of them eating toast, all examining the Goblet of Fire. It had been placed in the center of the hall on the stool that normally bore the Sorting Hat. A thin golden line had been traced on the floor, forming a circle ten feet around it in every direction.

“Anyone put their name in yet?” Ronnie asked a third-year girl eagerly.

“All the Durmstrang lot,” she replied. “But I haven’t seen anyone from Hogwarts yet.”

“Bet some of them put it in last night after we’d all gone to bed,” said Harriet. “I would’ve if it had been me... wouldn’t have wanted everyone watching. What if the goblet just gobbed you right back out again?”

Someone laughed behind Harriet. Turning, she saw Frankie, Georgina, and Leah Jordan hurrying down the staircase, all three of them looking extremely excited.

“Done it,” Frankie said in a triumphant whisper to Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes. “Just taken it.”

“What?” said Ronnie.

“The Aging Potion, dung brains,” said Frankie.

“One drop each,” said Georgina, rubbing her hands together with glee. “We only need to be a few months older.”

“We’re going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins,” said Leah, grinning broadly.

“I’m not sure this is going to work, you know,” said Hermes warningly. “I’m sure Dumbledore will have thought of this.”

Frankie, Georgina, and Leah ignored him.

“Ready?” Frankie said to the other two, quivering with excitement. “C’mon, then - I’ll go first -”

Harriet watched, fascinated, as Frankie pulled a slip of parchment out of her pocket bearing the words Frankie Prewett - Hogwarts. Frankie walked right up to the edge of the line and stood there, rocking on her toes like a diver preparing for a fifty-foot drop. Then, with the eyes of every person in the entrance hall upon her, she took a great breath and stepped over the line.

For a split second Harriet thought it had worked - Georgina certainly thought so, for she let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Frankie - but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot-putter. They landed painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor, and to add insult to injury, there was a loud popping noise, and both of them sprouted identical long white beards.

The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Frankie and Georgina joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other’s beards.

“I did warn you,” said a deep, amused voice, and everyone turned to see Professor Dumbledore coming out of the Great Hall. She surveyed Frankie and Georgina, her eyes twinkling. “I suggest you both go up to Master Pomfrey. He is already tending to Mr. Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Miss Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours.”

Frankie and Georgina set off for the hospital wing, accompanied by Leah, who was howling with laughter, and Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, also chortling, went in to breakfast.

The decorations in the Great Hall had changed this morning. As it was Halloween, a cloud of live bats was fluttering around the enchanted ceiling, while hundreds of carved pumpkins leered from every corner. Harriet led the way over to Dinah and Sinead, who were discussing those Hogwarts students of seventeen or over who might be entering.

“There’s a rumor going around that Warrington got up early and put his name in,” Dinah told Harriet. “That big bloke from Slytherin who looks like a sloth.”

Harriet, who had played Quidditch against Warrington, shook her head in disgust. “We can’t have a Slytherin champion!”

“And all the Hufflepuffs are talking about Diggory,” said Sinead contemptuously. “But I wouldn’t have thought she’d have wanted to risk her good looks.”

“Listen!” said Hermes suddenly.

People were cheering out in the entrance hall. They all swiveled around in their seats and saw Anthony Johnson coming into the Hall, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way. A tall black boy who played Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Anthony came over to them, sat down, and said, “Well, I’ve done it! Just put my name in!”

“You’re kidding!” said Ronnie, looking impressed.

“Are you seventeen, then?” asked Harriet.

“Course he is, can’t see a beard, can you?” said Ronnie. 

“I had my birthday last week,” said Anthony.

“Well, I’m glad someone from Gryffindor’s entering,” said Hermes. “I really hope you get it, Anthony!”

“Thanks, Hermes,” said Anthony, smiling at him.

“Yeah, better you than Pretty-Girl Diggory,” said Sinead, causing several Hufflepuffs passing their table to scowl heavily at her.

“What’re we going to do today, then?” Ronnie asked Harriet and Hermes when they had finished breakfast and were leaving the Great Hall.

“We haven’t been down to visit Hagrid yet,” said Harriet.

“Okay,” said Ronnie, “just as long as she doesn’t ask us to donate a few fingers to the skrewts.” A look of great excitement suddenly dawned on Hermes’ face.

“I’ve just realized - I haven’t asked Hagrid to join S.P.E.W. yet!” he said brightly.

“Wait for me, will you, while I nip upstairs and get the badges?”

“What is it with him?” said Ronnie, exasperated, as Hermes ran away up the marble staircase. 

“Hey, Ronnie,” said Harriet suddenly. “It’s your friend...”

The students from Beauxbatons were coming through the front doors from the grounds, among them, the veela-boy. Those gathered around the Goblet of Fire stood back to let them pass, watching eagerly.

Monsieur Maxime entered the hall behind his students and organized them into a line. One by one, the Beauxbatons students stepped across the Age Line and dropped their slips of parchment into the blue-white flames. As each name entered the fire, it turned briefly red and emitted sparks.

“What d’you reckon’ll happen to the ones who aren’t chosen?” Ronnie muttered to Harriet as the veela-boy dropped his parchment into the Goblet of Fire. “Reckon they’ll go back to school, or hang around to watch the tournament?”

“Dunno,” said Harriet. “Hang around, I suppose... Monsieur Maxime’s staying to judge, isn’t he?”

When all the Beauxbatons students had submitted their names, Monsieur Maxime led them back out of the hall and out onto the grounds again.

“Where are they sleeping, then?” said Ronnie, moving toward the front doors and staring after them. A loud rattling noise behind them announced Hermes’ reappearance with the box of S.P.E.W. badges.

“Oh good, hurry up,” said Ronnie, and she jumped down the stone steps, keeping her eyes on the back of the veela-boy, who was now halfway across the lawn with Monsieur Maxime.

As they neared Hagrid’s cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, the mystery of the Beauxbatons’ sleeping quarters was solved. The gigantic powder-blue carriage in which they had arrived had been parked two hundred yards from Hagrid’s front door, and the students were climbing back inside it. The elephantine flying horses that had pulled the carriage were now grazing in a makeshift paddock alongside it. Harriet knocked on Hagrid’s door, and Fang’s booming barks answered instantly.

“Bout time!” said Hagrid, when she’d flung open the door. “Thought you lot’d forgotten where I live!”

“We’ve been really busy, Hag -” Hermes started to say, but then he stopped dead, looking up at Hagrid, apparently lost for words.  
Hagrid was wearing her best (and very horrible) hairy brown dress, plus a checked yellow-and-orange necktie. This wasn’t the worst of it, though; she had evidently tried to tame her hair, using large quantities of what appeared to be axle grease. It was now slicked down into two bunches - perhaps he had tried a ponytail like Beth’s, but found she had too much hair. The look didn’t really suit Hagrid at all. For a moment, Hermes goggled at her, then, obviously deciding not to comment, he said, “Erm - where are the skrewts.”

“Out by the pumpkin patch,” said Hagrid happily. “They’re get-tin’ massive, mus’ be nearly three foot long now. On’y trouble is, they’ve started killin’ each other.”

“Oh no, really?” said Hermes, shooting a repressive look at Ronnie, who, staring at Hagrid’s odd hairstyle, had just opened her mouth to say something about it.

“Yeah,” said Hagrid sadly. “S’ okay, though, I’ve got ‘em in separate boxes now. Still got abou’ twenty.”

“Well, that’s lucky,” said Ronnie. Hagrid missed the sarcasm.

Hagrid’s cabin comprised a single room, in one corner of which was a gigantic bed covered in a patchwork quilt. A similarly enormous wooden table and chairs stood in front of the fire beneath the quantity of cured hams and dead birds hanging from the ceiling. They sat down at the table while Hagrid started to make tea, and were soon immersed in yet more discussion of the Triwizard Tournament. Hagrid seemed quite as excited about it as they were.

“You wait,” she said, grinning. “You jus’ wait. Yer going ter see some stuff yeh’ve never seen before. Firs’ task... ah, but I’m not supposed ter say.”

“Go on, Hagrid!” Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes urged her, but she just shook her head, grinning.

“I don’ want ter spoil it fer yeh,” said Hagrid. “But it’s gonna be spectacular, I’ll tell yeh that. Them champions’re going ter have their work cut out. Never thought I’d live ter see the Triwizard Tournament played again!”

They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn’t eat much – Hagrid had made what she said was a beef casserole, but after Hermes unearthed a large talon in his, he, Harriet, and Ronnie rather lost their appetites. However, they enjoyed themselves trying to make Hagrid tell them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating which of the entrants were likely to be selected as champions, and wondering whether Frankie and Georgina were beardless  
yet. A light rain had started to fall by midafternoon; it was very cozy sitting by the fire, listening to the gentle patter of the drops on the window, watching Hagrid darning her socks and arguing with Hermes about house-elves - for she flatly refused to join S.P.E.W. when he showed her his badges.

“It’d be doin’ ‘em an unkindness, Hermes,” she said gravely, threading a massive bone needle with thick yellow yarn. “It’s in their nature ter look after humans, that’s what they like, see? Yeh’d be makin’ ‘em unhappy ter take away their work, an’ insutin’ ‘em if yeh tried ter pay ‘em.”

“But Harriet set Dobby free, and she was over the moon about it!” said Hermes. “And we heard she’s asking for wages now!”

“Yeah, well, yeh get weirdos in every breed. I’m not sayin’ there isn’t the odd elf who’d take freedom, but yeh’ll never persuade most of ‘em ter do it - no, nothin’ doin’, Hermes.”

Hermes looked very cross indeed and stuffed his box of badges back into his cloak pocket.

By half past five it was growing dark, and Ronnie, Harriet, and Hermes decided it was time to get back up to the castle for the Halloween feast - and, more important, the announcement of the school champions.

“I’ll come with yeh,” said Hagrid, putting away her darning. “Jus’ give us a sec.”

Hagrid got up, went across to the chest of drawers beside her bed, and began searching for something inside it. They didn’t pay too much attention until a truly horrible smell reached their nostrils. Coughing, Ronnie said, “Hagrid, what’s that?”

“Eh?” said Hagrid, turning around with a large bottle in her hand. “Don’ yeh like it?” 

“Is that aftershave?” said Hermes in a slightly choked voice.

“Er - eau de cologne,” Hagrid muttered. She was blushing. “Maybe it’s a bit much,” she said gruffly. “I’ll go take it off, hang on...”

She stumped out of the cabin, and they saw her washing herself vigorously in the water barrel outside the window.

“Eau de cologne?” said Hermes in amazement. “Hagrid?”

“And what’s with the hair and the suit?” said Harriet in an undertone.

“Look!” said Ronnie suddenly, pointing out of the window. Hagrid had just straightened up and turned ‘round. If she had been blushing before, it was nothing to what she was doing now. Getting to their feet very cautiously, so that Hagrid wouldn’t spot them, Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes peered through the window and saw that Monsieur Maxime and the Beauxbatons students had just emerged from their carriage, clearly about to set off for the feast too. They couldn’t hear what Hagrid was saying, but she was talking to Monsieur Maxime with a rapt, misty-eyed expression Harriet had only ever seen her wear once before - when she had been looking at the baby dragon, Norbert.

“She’s going up to the castle with him!” said Hermes indignantly. “I thought she was waiting for us!”

Without so much as a backward glance at her cabin, Hagrid was trudging off up the grounds with Monsieur Maxime, the Beauxbatons students following in their wake, jogging to keep up with their enormous strides.

“She fancies him!” said Ronnie incredulously. “Well, if they end up having children, they’ll be setting a world record - bet any baby of theirs would weigh about a ton.”

They let themselves out of the cabin and shut the door behind them. It was surprisingly dark outside. Drawing their cloaks more closely around themselves, they set off up the sloping lawns.

“Ooh it’s them, look!” Hermes whispered.  
The Durmstrang party was walking up toward the castle from the lake. Viktoria Krum was walking side by side with Karkaroff, and the other Durmstrang students were straggling along behind them. Ronnie watched Krum excitedly, but Krum did not look around as she reached the front doors a little ahead of Hermes, Ronnie, and Harriet and proceeded through them.

When they entered the candlelit Great Hall it was almost full. The Goblet of Fire had been moved; it was now standing in front of Dumbledore’s empty chair at the teachers’ table. Frankie and Georgina - clean-shaven again - seemed to have taken their disappointment fairly well.

“Hope it’s Anthony,” said Frankie as Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes sat down. 

“So do I!” said Hermes breathlessly. “Well, we’ll soon know!”

The Halloween feast seemed to take much longer than usual. Perhaps because it was their second feast in two days, Harriet didn’t seem to fancy the extravagantly prepared food as much as she would have normally. Like everyone else in the Hall, judging by the constantly craning necks, the impatient expressions on every face, the fidgeting, and the standing up to see whether Dumbledore had finished eating yet, Harriet simply wanted the plates to clear, and to hear who had been selected as champions.

At long last, the golden plates returned to their original spotless state; there was a sharp upswing in the level of noise within the Hall, which died away almost instantly as Dumbledore got to her feet. On either side of her, Professor Karkaroff and Monsieur Maxime looked as tense and expectant as anyone. Lucinda Bagman was beaming and winking at various students. Mrs. Crouch, however, looked quite uninterested, almost bored.

“Well, the goblet is almost ready to make its decision,” said Dumbledore. “I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now, when the champions’ names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the Hall, walk along the staff table, and go through into the next chamber” - she indicated the door behind the staff table - “where they will be receiving their first instructions.”

She took out her wand and gave a great sweeping wave with it; at once, all the candles except those inside the carved pumpkins were extinguished, plunging them into a state of semidarkness.

The Goblet of Fire now shone more brightly than anything in the whole Hall, the sparkling bright, bluey-whiteness of the flames almost painful on the eyes. Everyone watched, waiting... A few people kept checking their watches...

“Any second,” Leah Jordan whispered, two seats away from Harriet.

The flames inside the goblet turned suddenly red again. Sparks began to fly from it. Next moment, a tongue of flame shot into the air, a charred piece of parchment fluttered out of it - the whole room gasped.

Dumbledore caught the piece of parchment and held it at arm’s length, so that she could read it by the light of the flames, which had turned back to blue-white.

“The champion for Durmstrang,” she read, in a strong, clear voice, “will be Viktoria Krum.”

“No surprises there!” yelled Ronnie as a storm of applause and cheering swept the Hall. Harriet saw Viktoria Krum rise from the Slytherin table and slouch up toward Dumbledore; she turned right, walked along the staff table, and disappeared through the door into the next chamber.

“Bravo, Viktoria!” boomed Karkaroff, so loudly that everyone could hear her, even over all the applause. “Knew you had it in you!”

The clapping and chatting died down. Now everyone’s attention was focused again on the goblet, which, seconds later, turned red once more. A second piece of parchment shot out of it, propelled by the flames.

“The champion for Beauxbatons,” said Dumbledore, “is Florian Delacour!”

“It’s him, Ronnie!” Harriet shouted as the boy who so resembled a veela got gracefully to his feet, shook back his sheet of silvery blonde hair, and swept up between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables.

“Oh look, they’re all disappointed,” Hermes said over the noise, nodding toward the remainder of the Beauxbatons party. “Disappointed” was a bit of an understatement, Harriet thought. Two of the boys who had not been selected had dissolved into tears and were sobbing with their heads on their arms.

When Florian Delacour too had vanished into the side chamber, silence fell again, but this time it was a silence so stiff with excitement you could almost taste it. The Hogwarts champion next...

And the Goblet of Fire turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.

“The Hogwarts champion,” she called, “is Celia Diggory!”

“No!” said Ronnie loudly, but nobody heard her except Harriet; the uproar from the next table was too great. Every single Hufflepuff had jumped to his or her feet, screaming and stamping, as Celia made her way past them, grinning broadly, and headed off toward the chamber behind the teachers’ table. Indeed, the applause for Celia went on so long that it was some time before Dumbledore could make herself heard again.

“Excellent!” Dumbledore called happily as at last the tumult died down. “Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real —”

But Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was apparent to everybody what had distracted her.

The fire in the goblet had just turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment.

Automatically, it seemed, Dumbledore reached out a long hand and seized the parchment. She held it out and stared at the name written upon it. There was a long pause, during which Dumbledore stared at the slip in her hands, and everyone in the room stared at Dumbledore. And then Dumbledore cleared her throat and read out - “Harriet Evans.”


	17. The Four Champions

Harriet sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at her. She was stunned. She felt numb. She was surely dreaming. She had not heard correctly.

There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harriet as she sat, frozen, in her seat. Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to his feet and swept past Lucinda Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent her ear toward him, frowning slightly. Harriet turned to Ronnie and Hermes; beyond them, she saw the long Gryffindor table all watching her, openmouthed.

“I didn’t put my name in,” Harriet said blankly. “You know I didn’t.”

Both of them stared just as blankly back.

At the top table, Professor Dumbledore had straightened up, nodding to Professor McGonagall. “Harriet Evans!” she called again. “Harriet! Up here, if you please!”

“Go on,” Hermes whispered, giving Harriet a slight push.

Harriet got to her feet, trod on the hem of her robes, and stumbled slightly. She set off up the gap between the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. It felt like an immensely long walk; the top table didn’t seem to be getting any nearer at all, and she could feel hundreds and hundreds of eyes upon her, as though each were a searchlight. The buzzing grew louder and louder. After what seemed like an hour, she was right in front of Dumbledore, feeling the stares of all the teachers upon her.

“Well... through the door, Harriet,” said Dumbledore. She wasn’t smiling. Harriet moved off along the teachers’ table. Hagrid was seated right at the end. She did not wink at Harriet, or wave, or give any of her usual signs of greeting. She looked completely astonished and stared at Harriet as she passed like everyone else.

Harriet went through the door out of the Great Hall and found herself in a smaller room, lined with paintings of witches and wizards. A handsome fire was roaring in the fireplace opposite her. The faces in the portraits turned to look at her as she entered. She saw a wizened witch flit out of the frame of her picture and into the one next to it, which contained a wizard with a walrus mustache. The wizened witch started whispering in his ear.

Viktoria Krum, Celia Diggory, and Florian Delacour were grouped around the fire. They looked strangely impressive, silhouetted against the flames. Krum, hunched up and brooding, was leaning against the mantelpiece, slightly apart from the other two. Celia was standing with her hands behind her back, staring into the fire.

Florian Delacour looked around when Harriet walked in and threw back his sheet of silvery hair.

“What is it?” he said. “Do zey want us back in ze Hall?”

He thought she had come to deliver a message. Harriet didn’t know how to explain what had just happened. She just stood there, looking at the three champions. It struck her how very tall all of them were.

There was a sound of scurrying feet behind her, and Lucinda Bagman entered the room. She took Harriet by the arm and led her forward.

“Extraordinary!” she muttered, squeezing Harriet’s arm. “Absolutely extraordinary! Ladies... gentleman,” she added, approaching the fireside and addressing the other three. “May I introduce - incredible though it may seem - the fourth Triwizard champion?”

Viktoria Krum straightened up. Her surly face darkened as she surveyed Harriet. Celia looked nonplussed. She looked from Bagman to Harriet and back again as though sure she must have misheard what Bagman had said. Florian Delacour, however, tossed his hair, smiling, and said, “Oh, vairy funny joke, Mees Bagman.”

“Joke?” Bagman repeated, bewildered. “No, no, not at all! Harriet’s name just came out of the Goblet of Fire!”

Krum’s thick eyebrows contracted slightly. Celia was still looking politely bewildered. Florian frowned.

“But evidently zair ‘as been a mistake,” he said contemptuously to Bagman. “E cannot compete. ‘E is too young.”

“Well... it is amazing,” said Bagman, rubbing her smooth chin and smiling down at Harriet. “But, as you know, the age restriction was only imposed this year as an extra safety measure. And as her name’s come out of the goblet... I mean, I don’t think there can be any ducking out at this stage... It’s down in the rules, you’re obliged... Harriet will just have to do the best she —”

The door behind them opened again, and a large group of people came in: Professor Dumbledore, followed closely by Mrs. Crouch, Professor Karkaroff, Monsieur Maxime, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Prince. Harriet heard the buzzing of the hundreds of students on the other side of the wall, before Professor McGonagall closed the door.

“Monsieur Maxime!” said Florian at once, striding over to his headmaster. “Zey are saying zat zis little girl is to compete also!”

Somewhere under Harriet’s numb disbelief she felt a ripple of anger. Little girl? Monsieur Maxime had drawn himself up to her full, and considerable, height. The top of his handsome head brushed the candle-filled chandelier.

“What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?” he said imperiously.

“I’d rather like to know that myself, Dumbledore,” said Professor Karkaroff. She was wearing a steely smile, and her blue eyes were like chips of ice. “Two Hogwarts champions? I don’t remember anyone telling me the host school is allowed two champions – or have I not read the rules carefully enough?” She gave a short and nasty laugh.

“C’est impossible,” said Monsieur Maxime , whose enormous hand with its many superb opals was resting upon Florian’s shoulder. “Ogwarts cannot ‘ave two champions. It is most injust.”

“We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore,” said Karkaroff, her steely smile still in place, though her eyes were colder than ever. “Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools.”

“It’s no one’s fault but Evans’, Karkaroff,” said Prince softly. Her black eyes were alight with malice. “Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Evans’ determination to break rules. She has been crossing lines ever since she arrived here -”

“Thank you, Stevanie,” said Dumbledore firmly, and Prince went quiet, though her eyes still glinted malevolently through her curtain of greasy black hair.

Professor Dumbledore was now looking down at Harriet, who looked right back at her, trying to discern the expression of the eyes behind the half-moon spectacles.

“Did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire, Harriet?” she asked calmly.

“No,” said Harriet. She was very aware of everybody watching her closely. Prince made a soft noise of impatient disbelief in the shadows.

“Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?” said Professor Dumbledore, ignoring Prince.

“No,” said Harriet vehemently.

“Ah, but of course ‘e is lying!” cried Monsieur Maxime. Prince was now shaking her head, her lip curling.

“She could not have crossed the Age Line,” said Professor McGonagall sharply. “I am sure we are all agreed on that -”

“Dumbly-dorr must ‘ave made a mistake wiz ze line,” said Monsieur Maxime, shrugging.

“It is possible, of course,” said Dumbledore politely.

“Dumbledore, you know perfectly well you did not make a mistake!” said Professor McGonagall angrily. “Really, what nonsense! Harriet could not have crossed the line herself, and as Professor Dumbledore believes that she did not persuade an older student to do it for her, I’m sure that should be good enough for everybody else!”

He shot a very angry look at Professor Prince.

“Mrs. Crouch... Mrs. Bagman,” said Karkaroff, her voice unctuous once more, “you are our - er - objective judges. Surely you will agree that this is most irregular?”

Bagman wiped her round, girlish face with her handkerchief and looked at Mrs. Crouch, who was standing outside the circle of the firelight, her face half hidden in shadow. She looked slightly eerie, the half darkness making her look much older, giving her an almost skull-like appearance. When she spoke, however, it was in her usual curt voice.

“We must follow the rules, and the rules state clearly that those people whose names come out of the Goblet of Fire are bound to compete in the tournament.”

“Well, Barby knows the rule book back to front,” said Bagman, beaming and turning back to Karkaroff and Monsieur Maxime, as though the matter was now closed.

“I insist upon resubmitting the names of the rest of my students,” said Karkaroff. She had dropped her unctuous tone and her smile now. Her face wore a very ugly look indeed. “You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has two champions. It’s only fair, Dumbledore.”

“But Karkaroff, it doesn’t work like that,” said Bagman. “The Goblet of Fire’s just gone out - it won’t reignite until the start of the next tournament -”

“- in which Durmstrang will most certainly not be competing!” exploded Karkaroff. “After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!”

“Empty threat, Karkaroff,” growled a voice from near the door. “You can’t leave your champion now. She’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?”

Moody had just entered the room. She limped toward the fire, and with every right step she took, there was a loud clunk.

“Convenient?” said Karkaroff. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Moody.” Harriet could tell she was trying to sound disdainful, as though what Moody was saying was barely worth her notice, but her hands gave her away; they had balled themselves into fists.

“Don’t you?” said Moody quietly. “It’s very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Evans’ name in that goblet knowing she’d have to compete if it came out.”

“Evidently, someone ‘oo wished to give ‘Ogwarts two bites at ze apple!” said Monsieur Maxime.

“I quite agree, Monsieur Maxime,” said Karkaroff, bowing to him. “I shall be lodging complaints with the Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards -”

“If anyone’s got reason to complain, it’s Evans,” growled Moody, “but... funny thing... I don’t hear her saying a word...”

“Why should ‘e complain?” burst out Florian Delacour, stamping his foot. “E ‘as ze chance to compete, ‘asn’t ‘e? We ‘ave all been ‘oping to be chosen for weeks and weeks! Ze honor for our schools! A thousand Galleons in prize money - zis is a chance many would die for!”

“Maybe someone’s hoping Evans is going to die for it,” said Moody, with the merest trace of a growl.

An extremely tense silence followed these words. Lucinda Bagman, who was looking very anxious indeed, bounced nervously up and down on her feet and said, “Moody, old woman... what a thing to say!”

“We all know Professor Moody considers the morning wasted if she hasn’t discovered six plots to murder her before lunchtime,” said Karkaroff loudly. “Apparently she is now teaching her students to fear assassination too. An odd quality in a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore, but no doubt you had your reasons.”

“Imagining things, am I?” growled Moody. “Seeing things, eh? It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the girl’s name in that goblet...”

“Ah, what evidence is zere of zat?” said Monsieur Maxime, throwing up his huge hands.

“Because they hoodwinked a very powerful magical object!” said Moody. “It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the tournament... I’m guessing they submitted Evans’ name under a fourth school, to make sure she was the only one in her category...”

“You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, Moody,” said Karkaroff coldly, “and a very ingenious theory it is - though of course, I heard you recently got it into your head that one of your birthday presents contained a cunningly disguised basilisk egg, and smashed it to pieces before realizing it was a carriage clock. So you’ll understand if we don’t take you entirely seriously...”

“There are those who’ll turn innocent occasions to their advantage,” Moody retorted in a menacing voice. “It’s my job to think the way Dark wizards do, Karkaroff - as you ought to remember...”

“Alyssa!” said Dumbledore warningly. Harriet wondered for a moment whom she was speaking to, but then realized “Mad-Eye” could hardly be Moody’s real first name. Moody fell silent, though still surveying Karkaroff with satisfaction - Karkaroff’s face was burning.

“How this situation arose, we do not know,” said Dumbledore, speaking to everyone gathered in the room. “It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Celia and Harriet have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do...”

“Ah, but Dumbly-dorr -”

“My dear Monsieur Maxime, if you have an alternative, I would be delighted to hear it.”  
Dumbledore waited, but Monsieur Maxime did not speak, he merely glared. He wasn’t the only one either. Prince looked furious; Karkaroff livid; Bagman, however, looked rather excited.

“Well, shall we crack on, then?” she said, rubbing her hands together and smiling around the room. “Got to give our champions their instructions, haven’t we? Barby, want to do the honors?”

Mrs. Crouch seemed to come out of a deep reverie. “Yes,” she said, “instructions. Yes... the first task...”

She moved forward into the firelight. Close up, Harriet thought she looked ill. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes and a thin, papery look about her wrinkled skin that had not been there at the Quidditch World Cup.

“The first task is designed to test your daring,” she told Harriet, Celia, Florian, and Viktoria, “so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard... very important.

“The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges.

“The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests.”

Mrs. Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore. “I think that’s all, is it, Ariana?”

“I think so,” said Dumbledore, who was looking at Mrs. Crouch with mild concern. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barby?”

“No, Dumbledore, I must get back to the Ministry,” said Mrs. Crouch. “It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment... I’ve left young Weatherby in charge... Very enthusiastic... a little overenthusiastic, if truth be told...

“You’ll come and have a drink before you go, at least?” said Dumbledore.

“Come on, Barby, I’m staying!” said Bagman brightly. “It’s all happening at Hogwarts now, you know, much more exciting here than at the office!”

“I think not, Lucinda,” said Crouch with a touch of her old impatience. 

“Professor Karkaroff - Monsieur Maxime - a nightcap?” said Dumbledore.

But Monsieur Maxime had already put his arm around Florian’s shoulders and was leading him swiftly out of the room. Harriet could hear them both talking very fast in French as they went off into the Great Hall. Karkaroff beckoned to Krum, and they, too, exited, though in silence.

“Harriet, Celia, I suggest you go up to bed,” said Dumbledore, smiling at both of them. “I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise.”

Harriet glanced at Celia, who nodded, and they left together.

The Great Hall was deserted now; the candles had burned low, giving the jagged smiles of the pumpkins an eerie, flickering quality.

“So,” said Celia, with a slight smile. “We’re playing against each other again!”

“I s’pose,” said Harriet. She really couldn’t think of anything to say. The inside of her head seemed to be in complete disarray, as though her brain had been ransacked.

“So... tell me...” said Celia as they reached the entrance hall, which was now lit only by torches in the absence of the Goblet of Fire. “How did you get your name in?”

“I didn’t,” said Harriet, staring up at her. “I didn’t put it in. I was telling the truth.”

“Ah... okay,” said Celia. Harriet could tell Celia didn’t believe her. “Well... see you, then.”

Instead of going up the marble staircase, Celia headed for a door to its right. Harriet stood listening to her going down the stone steps beyond it, then, slowly, she started to climb the marble ones.

Was anyone except Ronnie and Hermes going to believe her, or would they all think she’d put herself in for the tournament? Yet how could anyone think that, when she was facing competitors who’d had three years’ more magical education than she had - when she was now facing tasks that not only sounded very dangerous, but which were to be performed in front of hundreds of people? Yes, she’d thought about it... she’d fantasized about it... but it had been a joke, really, an idle sort of dream... she’d never really, seriously considered entering..

But someone else had considered it... someone else had wanted her in the tournament, and had made sure she was entered. Why? To give her a treat? She didn’t think so, somehow... To see her make a fool of herself? Well, they were likely to get their wish... But to get her killed? Was Moody just being her usual paranoid self? Couldn’t someone have put Harriet’s name in the goblet as a trick, a practical joke? Did anyone really want her dead?

Harriet was able to answer that at once. Yes, someone wanted her dead, someone had wanted her dead ever since she had been a year old... Lord Voldemort. But how could Voldemort have ensured that Harriet’s name got into the Goblet of Fire? Voldemort was supposed to be far away, in some distant country, in hiding, alone... feeble and powerless...

Yet in that dream she had had, just before she had awoken with her scar hurting, Voldemort had not been alone... he had been talking to Wormtail... plotting Harriet’s murder. Harriet got a shock to find herself facing the Fat Lady already. She had barely noticed where her feet were carrying her. It was also a surprise to see that she was not alone in her frame. The wizened witch who had flitted into her neighbor’s painting when she had joined the champions downstairs was now sitting smugly beside the Fat Lady. She must have dashed through every picture lining seven staircases to reach here before her. Both she and the Fat Lady were looking down at her with the keenest interest.

“Well, well, well,” said the Fat Lady, “Violet’s just told me everything. Who’s just been chosen as school champion, then?”

“Balderdash,” said Harriet dully.

“It most certainly isn’t!” said the pale witch indignantly.

“No, no, Vi, it’s the password,” said the Fat Lady soothingly, and she swung forward on her hinges to let Harriet into the common room.

The blast of noise that met Harriet’s ears when the portrait opened almost knocked her backward. Next thing she knew, she was being wrenched inside the common room by about a dozen pairs of hands, and was facing the whole of Gryffindor House, all of whom were screaming, applauding, and whistling.

“You should’ve told us you’d entered!” bellowed Frankie; she looked half annoyed, half deeply impressed.

“How did you do it without getting a beard? Brilliant!” roared Georgina.

“I didn’t,” Harriet said. “I don’t know how -”

But Anthony had now swooped down upon her; “Oh if it couldn’t be me, at least it’s a Gryffindor -”

“You’ll be able to pay back Diggory for that last Quidditch match, Harriet!” shrieked Cato Bell, another of the Gryffindor Chasers.

“We’ve got food, Harriet, come and have some -” 

“I’m not hungry, I had enough at the feast -”

But nobody wanted to hear that she wasn’t hungry; nobody wanted to hear that she hadn’t put her name in the goblet; not one single person seemed to have noticed that she wasn’t at all in the mood to celebrate... Leah Jordan had unearthed a Gryffindor banner from somewhere, and she insisted on draping it around Harriet like a cloak. Harriet couldn’t get away; whenever she tried to sidle over to the staircase up to the dormitories, the crowd around her closed ranks, forcing another butterbeer on her, stuffing crisps and peanuts into her hands... Everyone wanted to know how she had done it, how she had tricked Dumbledore’s Age Line and managed to get her name into the goblet...

“I didn’t,” she said, over and over again, “I don’t know how it happened.”

But for all the notice anyone took, she might just as well not have answered at all.

“I’m tired!” she bellowed finally, after nearly half an hour. “No, seriously, Georgina - I’m going to bed -”

She wanted more than anything to find Ronnie and Hermes, to find a bit of sanity, but neither of them seemed to be in the common room. Insisting that she needed to sleep, and almost flattening the little Creevey sisters as they attempted to waylay her at the foot of the stairs, Harriet managed to shake everyone off and climb up to the dormitory as fast as she could.

To her great relief, she found Ronnie was lying on her bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, still fully dressed. She looked up when Harriet slammed the door behind her.

“Where’ve you been?” Harriet said.

“Oh hello,” said Ronnie.

She was grinning, but it was a very odd, strained sort of grin. Harriet suddenly became aware that she was still wearing the scarlet Gryffindor banner that Leah had tied around her. She hastened to take it off, but it was knotted very tightly. Ronnie lay on the bed without moving, watching Harriet struggle to remove it.

“So,” she said, when Harriet had finally removed the banner and thrown it into a corner. “Congratulations.”

“What d’you mean, congratulations?” said Harriet, staring at Ronnie. There was definitely something wrong with the way Ronnie was smiling: It was more like a grimace.

“Well... no one else got across the Age Line,” said Ronnie. “Not even Frankie and Georgina. What did you use - the Invisibility Cloak?”

“The Invisibility Cloak wouldn’t have got me over that line,” said Harriet slowly.

“Oh right,” said Ronnie. “I thought you might’ve told me if it was the cloak... because it would’ve covered both of us, wouldn’t it? But you found another way, did you?”

“Listen,” said Harriet, “I didn’t put my name in that goblet. Someone else must’ve done it.”

Ronnie raised her eyebrows. “What would they do that for?”

“I dunno,” said Harriet. She felt it would sound very melodramatic to say, “To kill me.” Ronnie’s eyebrows rose so high that they were in danger of disappearing into her hair.

“It’s okay, you know, you can tell me the truth,” she said. “If you don’t want everyone else to know, fine, but I don’t know why you’re bothering to lie, you didn’t get into trouble for it, did you? That friend of the Fat Lady’s, that Violet, she’s already told us all Dumbledore’s letting you enter. A thousand Galleons prize money, eh? And you don’t have to do end-of-year tests either...”

“I didn’t put my name in that goblet!” said Harriet, starting to feel angry.

“Yeah, okay,” said Ronnie, in exactly the same sceptical tone as Celia. “Only you said this morning you’d have done it last night, and no one would’ve seen you... I’m not stupid, you know.”

“You’re doing a really good impression of it,” Harriet snapped.

“Yeah?” said Ronnie, and there was no trace of a grin, forced or otherwise, on her face now. “You want to get to bed, Harriet. I expect you’ll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something.”

She wrenched the hangings shut around her four-poster, leaving Harriet standing there by the door, staring at the dark red velvet curtains, now hiding one of the few people she had been sure would believe her.


	18. The Weighing of the Wands

When Harriet woke up on Sunday morning, it took her a moment to remember why she felt so miserable and worried. Then the memory of the previous night rolled over her. She sat up and ripped back the curtains of her own four-poster, intending to talk to Ronnie, to force Ronnie to believe her - only to find that Ronnie’s bed was empty; she had obviously gone down to breakfast.

Harriet dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment she appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating her like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow herself to be cornered by the Creevey sisters, who were both beckoning frantically to her to join them. She walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found herself face-to-face with Hermes.

“Hello,” he said, holding up a stack of toast, which he was carrying in a napkin. “I brought you this... Want to go for a walk?”

“Good idea,” said Harriet gratefully.

They went downstairs, crossed the entrance hall quickly without looking in at the Great Hall, and were soon striding across the lawn toward the lake, where the Durmstrang ship was moored, reflected blackly in the water. It was a chilly morning, and they kept moving, munching their toast, as Harriet told Hermes exactly what had happened after she had left the Gryffindor table the night before.

To her immense relief, Hermes accepted her story without question.

“Well, of course I knew you hadn’t entered yourself,” he said when she’d finished telling him about the scene in the chamber off the Hall. “The look on your face when Dumbledore read out your name! But the question is, who did put it in? Because Moody’s right, Harriet... I don’t think any student could have done it... they’d never be able to fool the Goblet, or get over Dumbledore’s -”

“Have you seen Ronnie?” Harriet interrupted. Hermes hesitated.

“Erm... yes... she was at breakfast,” he said.

“Does she still think I entered myself?”

“Well... no, I don’t think so... not really,” said Hermes awkwardly.

“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘not really’?”

“Oh Harriet, isn’t it obvious?” Hermes said despairingly. “She’s jealous!”

“Jealous?” Harriet said incredulously. “Jealous of what? She wants to make a prat of herself in front of the whole school, does she?”

“Look,” said Hermes patiently, “it’s always you who gets all the attention, you know it is. I know it’s not your fault,” he added quickly, seeing Harriet open her mouth furiously. “I know you don’t ask for it... but - well - you know, Ronnie’s got all those sisters to compete against at home, and you’re her best friend, and you’re really famous - she’s always shunted to one side whenever people see you, and she puts up with it, and she never mentions it, but I suppose this is just one time too many...”

“Great,” said Harriet bitterly. “Really great. Tell her from me I’ll swap any time she wants. Tell her from me she’s welcome to it... People gawping at my forehead everywhere I go...”

“I’m not telling her anything,” Hermes said shortly. “Tell her yourself. It’s the only way to sort this out.”

“I’m not running around after her trying to make her grow up!” Harriet said, so loudly that several owls in a nearby tree took flight in alarm. “Maybe she’ll believe I’m not enjoying myself once I’ve got my neck broken or -”

“That’s not funny,” said Hermes quietly. “That’s not funny at all.” He looked extremely anxious. “Harriet, I’ve been thinking - you know what we’ve got to do, don’t you? Straight away, the moment we get back to the castle?”

“Yeah, give Ronnie a good kick up the -”

“Write to Siri. You’ve got to tell her what’s happened. She asked you to keep her posted on everything that’s going on at Hogwarts... It’s almost as if she expected something like this to happen. I brought some parchment and a quill out with me -”

“Come off it,” said Harriet, looking around to check that they couldn’t be overheard, but the grounds were quite deserted. “She came back to the country just because my scar twinged. She’ll probably come bursting right into the castle if I tell her someone’s entered me in the Triwizard Tournament -“

“She’s want you to tell her,” said Hermes sternly. “She’s going to find out anyway.”

“How?”

“Harriet, this isn’t going to be kept quiet,” said Hermes, very seriously. “This tournament’s famous, and you’re famous. I’ll be really surprised if there isn’t anything in the Daily Prophet about you competing... You’re already in half the books about You-Know-Who, you know... and Siri would rather hear it from you, I know she would.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll write to her,” said Harriet, throwing her last piece of toast into the lake. They both stood and watched it floating there for a moment, before a large tentacle rose out of the water and scooped it beneath the surface. Then they returned to the castle.

“Whose owl am I going to use?” Harriet said as they climbed the stairs. “She told me not to use Hedwig again.”

“Ask Ronnie if you can borrow -”

“I’m not asking Ronnie for anything,” Harriet said flatly.

“Well, borrow one of the school owls, then, anyone can use them,” said Hermes.

They went up to the Owlery. Hermes gave Harriet a piece of parchment, a quill, and a bottle of ink, then strolled around the long lines of perches, looking at all the different owls, while Harriet sat down against a wall and wrote her letter.

‘Dear Siri,

You told me to keep you posted on what’s happening at Hogwarts, so here goes – I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Triwizard Tournament’s happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don’t who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn’t. The other Hogwarts champion is Celia Diggory, from Hufflepuff’

She paused at this point, thinking. She had an urge to say something about the large weight of anxiety that seemed to have settled inside her chest since last night, but she couldn’t think how to translate this into words, so she simply dipped her quill back into the ink bottle and wrote,

‘Hope you’re okay, and Buckbeak –

Harriet’

“Finished,” she told Hermes, getting to her feet and brushing straw off her robes. At this, Hedwig fluttered down onto her shoulder and held out her leg.

“I can’t use you,” Harriet told her, looking around for the school owls. “I’ve got to use one of these.”

Hedwig gave a very loud hoot and took off so suddenly that her talons cut into her shoulder. She kept her back to Harriet all the time she was tying her letter to the leg of a large barn owl. When the barn owl had flown off, Harriet reached out to stroke Hedwig, but she clicked her beak furiously and soared up into the rafters out of reach.

“First Ronnie, then you,” Harriet said angrily. “This isn’t my fault.”

If Harriet had thought that matters would improve once everyone got used to the idea of her being champion, the following day showed her how mistaken she was. She could no longer avoid the rest of the school once she was back at lessons - and it was clear that the rest of the school, just like the Gryffindors, thought Harriet had entered herself for the tournament. Unlike the Gryffindors, however, they did not seem impressed.

The Hufflepuffs, who were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors, had turned remarkably cold toward the whole lot of them. One Herbology lesson was enough to demonstrate this. It was plain that the Hufflepuffs felt that Harriet had stolen their champion’s glory; a feeling exacerbated, perhaps, by the fact that Hufflepuff House very rarely got any glory, and that Celia was one of the few who had ever given them any, having beaten Gryffindor once at Quidditch. Eleanor Macmillan and Justine Finch-Fletchley, with whom Harriet normally got on very well, did not talk to her even though they were repotting Bouncing Bulbs at the same tray - though they did laugh rather unpleasantly when one of the Bouncing Bulbs wriggled free from Harriet’s grip and smacked her hard in the face. Ronnie wasn’t talking to Harriet either. Hermes sat between them, making very forced conversation, but though both answered him normally, they avoided making eye contact with each other. Harriet thought even Professor Sprout seemed distant with her - but then, he was Head of Hufflepuff House.

She would have been looking forward to seeing Hagrid under normal circumstances, but Care of Magical Creatures meant seeing the Slytherins too – the first time she would come face-to-face with them since becoming champion.

Predictably, Black arrived at Hagrid’s cabin with her familiar sneer firmly in place.

“Ah, look, girls, it’s the champion,” she said to Crabbe and Goyle the moment she got within earshot of Harriet. “Got your autograph books? Better get a signature now, because I doubt she’s going to be around much longer... Half the Triwizard champions have died... how long d’you reckon you’re going to last, Evans? Ten minutes into the first task’s my bet.”

Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically, but Black had to stop there, because Hagrid emerged from the back of her cabin balancing a teetering tower of crates, each containing a very large Blast-Ended Skrewt. To the class’s horror, Hagrid proceeded to explain that the reason the skrewts had been killing one another was an excess of pent-up energy, and that the solution would be for each student to fix a leash on a skrewt and take it for a short walk. The only good thing about this plan was that it distracted Black completely.

“Take this thing for a walk?” she repeated in disgust, staring into one of the boxes. “And where exactly are we supposed to fix the leash? Around the sting, the blasting end, or the sucker?”

“Roun’ the middle,” said Hagrid, demonstrating. “Er - yeh might want ter put on yer dragon-hide gloves, jus’ as an extra precaution, like. Harriet - you come here an’ help me with this big one...”

Hagrid’s real intention, however, was to talk to Harriet away from the rest of the class. She waited until everyone else had set off with their skrewts, then turned to Harriet and said, very seriously, “So - yer competin’, Harriet. In the tournament. School champion.”

“One of the champions,” Harriet corrected her.  
Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under her wild eyebrows.

“No idea who put yeh in fer it, Harriet?”

“You believe I didn’t do it, then?” said Harriet, concealing with difficulty the rush of gratitude she felt at Hagrid’s words.

“Course I do,” Hagrid grunted. “Yeh say it wasn’ you, an’ I believe yeh - an’ Dumbledore believes yer, an’ all.”

“Wish I knew who did do it,” said Harriet bitterly.

The pair of them looked out over the lawn; the class was widely scattered now, and all in great difficulty. The skrewts were now over three feet long, and extremely powerful. No longer shell-less and colorless, they had developed a kind of thick, grayish, shiny armor. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs - but still without recognizable heads or eyes. They had become immensely strong and very hard to control.

“Look like they’re havin’ fun, don’ they?” Hagrid said happily. Harriet assumed she was talking about the skrewts, because her classmates certainly weren’t; every now and then, with an alarming bang, one of the skrewts’ ends would explode, causing it to shoot forward several yards, and more than one person was being dragged along on their stomach, trying desperately to get back on their feet.

“Ah, I don’ know, Harriet,” Hagrid sighed suddenly, looking back down at her with a worried expression on his face. “School champion... everythin’ seems ter happen ter you, doesn’ it?”

Harriet didn’t answer. Yes, everything did seem to happen to her... that was more or less what Hermes had said as they had walked around the lake, and that was the reason, according to him, that Ronnie was no longer talking to her. The next few days were some of Harriet’s worst at Hogwarts. The closest she had ever come to feeling like this had been during those months, in her second year, when a large part of the school had suspected her of attacking her fellow students. But Ronnie had been on her side then. She thought she could have coped with the rest of the school’s behavior if she could just have had Ronnie back as a friend, but she wasn’t going to try and persuade Ronnie to talk to her if Ronnie didn’t want to. Nevertheless, it was lonely with dislike pouring in on her from all sides.

She could understand the Hufflepuffs’ attitude, even if she didn’t like it; they had their own champion to support. She expected nothing less than vicious insults from the Slytherins - she was highly unpopular there and always had been, because she had helped Gryffindor beat them so often, both at Quidditch and in the Inter-House Championship. But she had hoped the Ravenclaws might have found it in their hearts to support her as much as Celia. She was wrong, however. Most Ravenclaws seemed to think that she had been desperate to earn herself a bit more fame by tricking the goblet into accepting her name.

Then there was the fact that Celia looked the part of a champion so much more than she did. Exceptionally handsome, with her straight nose, dark hair, and gray eyes, it was hard to say who was receiving more admiration these days, Celia or Viktoria Krum. Harriet actually saw the same sixth-year boys who had been so keen to get Krum’s autograph begging Celia to sign their school bags one lunchtime.

Meanwhile there was no reply from Siri, Hedwig was refusing to come anywhere near her, Professor Trelawney was predicting her death with even more certainty than usual, and she did so badly at Summoning Charms in Professor Flitwick’s class that she was given extra homework - the only person to get any, apart from Netta.

“It’s really not that difficult, Harriet,” Hermes tried to reassure her as they left Flitwick’s class - he had been making objects zoom across the room to his all lesson, as though he were some sort of weird magnet for board dusters, wastepaper baskets, and lunascopes. “You just weren’t concentrating properly -”

“Wonder why that was,” said Harriet darkly as Celia Diggory walked past, surrounded by a large group of simpering boys, all of whom looked at Harriet as though she were a particularly large Blast-Ended Skrewt. “Still - never mind, eh? Double Potions to look forward to this afternoon...”

Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Prince and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish Harriet as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing Harriet could imagine. She had already struggled through one Friday’s worth, with Hermes sitting next to her intoning “ignore them, ignore them, ignore them” under his breath, and she couldn’t see why today should be any better.

When she and Hermes arrived at Prince’s dungeon after lunch, they found the Slytherins waiting outside, each and every one of them wearing a large badge on the front of his or her robes. For one wild moment Harriet thought they were S.P.E.W. badges - then she saw that they all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:

‘SUPPORT CELIA DIGGORY—THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!’

“Like them, Evans?” said Black loudly as Harriet approached. “And this isn’t all they do - look!”

She pressed her badge into her chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green: 

‘EVANS STINKS!’

The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message EVANS STINKS was shining brightly all around Harriet. She felt the heat rise in her face and neck.

“Oh very funny,” Hermes said sarcastically to Percy Parkinson and his gang of Slytherin boys, who were laughing harder than anyone, “really witty.”

Ronnie was standing against the wall with Dinah and Sinead. She wasn’t laughing, but she wasn’t sticking up for Harriet either.

“Want one, Granger?” said Black, holding out a badge to Hermes. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.”

Some of the anger Harriet had been feeling for days and days seemed to burst through a dam in her chest. She had reached for her wand before she’d thought what she was doing. People all around them scrambled out of the way, backing down the corridor.

“Harriet!” Hermes said warningly.

“Go on, then, Evans,” Black said quietly, drawing out his own wand. “Moody’s not here to look after you now - do it, if you’ve got the guts -”

For a split second, they looked into each other’s eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted. “Funnunculus!” Harriet yelled.

“Densaugeo!” screamed Black.

Jets of light shot from both wands, hit each other in midair, and ricocheted off at angles — Harriet’s hit Goyle in the face, and Black’s hit Hermione. Goyle bellowed and put her hands to her nose, where great ugly boils were springing up - Hermes, whimpering in panic, was clutching his mouth.

“Hermes!”

Ronnie had hurried forward to see what was wrong with him; Harriet turned and saw Ronnie dragging Hermes’ hand away from his face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hermes’ front teeth - already larger than average - were now growing at an alarming rate; he was looking more and more like a beaver as his teeth elongated, past his bottom lip, toward his chin - panic-stricken, he felt them and let out a terrified cry.

“And what is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice.

Prince had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Prince pointed a long yellow finger at Black and said, “Explain.”

“Evans attacked me, miss -”

“We attacked each other at the same time!” Harriet shouted.

“- and she hit Goyle - look -”

Prince examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.

“Hospital wing, Goyle,” Prince said calmly.

“Black got Hermes!” Ronnie said. “Look!”

She forced Hermes to show Prince his teeth - he was doing his best to hide them with his hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past his collar. Percy Parkinson and the other Slytherin boys were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermes from behind Prince’s back.

Prince looked coldly at Hermes, then said, “I see no difference.”

Hermes let out a whimper; his eyes filled with tears, he turned on his heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.

It was lucky, perhaps, that both Harriet and Ronnie started shouting at Prince at the same time; lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for her to hear exactly what they were calling her. She got the gist, however.

“Let’s see,” she said, in her silkiest voice. “Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Evans and Prewett. Now get inside, or it’ll be a week’s worth of detentions.”

Harriet’s ears were ringing. The injustice of it made her want to curse Prince into a thousand slimy pieces. She passed Prince, walked with Ronnie to the back of the dungeon, and slammed her bag down onto the table. Ronnie was shaking with anger too - for a moment, it felt as though everything was back to normal between them, but then Ronnie turned and sat down with Dinah and Sinead instead, leaving Harriet alone at her table. On the other side of the dungeon, Black turned her back on Prince and pressed her badge, smirking. EVANS STINKS flashed once more across the room. Harriet sat there staring at Prince as the lesson began, picturing horrific things happening to her... If only she knew how to do the Cruciatus Curse... she’d have Prince flat on her back like that spider, jerking and twitching.

“Antidotes!” said Prince, looking around at them all, her cold black eyes glittering unpleasantly. “You should all have prepared your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, and then, we will be selecting someone on whom to test one...”

Prince’s eyes met Harriet’s, and Harriet knew what was coming. Prince was going to poison her. Harriet imagined picking up her cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Prince’s greasy head - And then a knock on the dungeon door burst in on Harriet’s thoughts.

It was Colette Creevey; she edged into the room, beaming at Harriet, and walked up to Prince’s desk at the front of the room.

“Yes?” said Prince curtly.

“Please, miss, I’m supposed to take Harriet Evans upstairs.” Prince stared down her hooked nose at Colette, whose smile faded from her eager face.

“Evans has another hour of Potions to complete,” said Prince coldly. “He will come upstairs when this class is finished.”

Colette went pink.

“Miss - miss, Mrs. Bagman wants her,” she said nervously. “All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs...”

Harriet would have given anything she owned to have stopped Colette saying those last few words. She chanced half a glance at Ronnie, but Ronnie was staring determinedly at the ceiling.

“Very well, very well,” Prince snapped. “Evans, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote.”

“Please, miss - she’s got to take her things with her,” squeaked Colette. “All the champions...” 

“Very well!” said Prince. “Evans - take your bag and get out of my sight!”

Harriet swung her bag over her shoulder, got up, and headed for the door. As she walked through the Slytherin desks, EVANS STINKS flashed at him from every direction.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it, Harriet?” said Colette, starting to speak the moment Harriet had closed the dungeon door behind her. “Isn’t it, though? You being champion?”

“Yeah, really amazing,” said Harriet heavily as they set off toward the steps into the entrance hall. “What do they want photos for, Colette?”

“The Daily Prophet, I think!”

“Great,” said Harriet dully. “Exactly what I need. More publicity.”

“Good luck!” said Colette when they had reached the right room. Harriet knocked on the door and entered.

She was in a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Lucinda Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a wizard Harriet had never seen before, who was wearing magenta robes.

Viktoria Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Celia and Florian were in conversation. Florian looked a good deal happier than Harriet had seen him so far; he kept throwing back his head so that his long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy woman, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Florian out of the corner of her eye.

Bagman suddenly spotted Harriet, got up quickly, and bounded forward.

“Ah, here she is! Champion number four! In you come, Harriet, in you come... nothing to worry about, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment -”

“Wand weighing?” Harriet repeated nervously.

“We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they’re your most important tools in the tasks ahead,” said Bagman. “The expert’s upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there’s going to be a little photoshoot. This is Peter Skeeter,” she added, gesturing toward the wizard in magenta robes. “He’s doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet...”

“Maybe not that small, Lucinda,” said Peter Skeeter, his eyes on Harriet.

His hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with his heavy-jawed face. He wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching his crocodile-skin bag ended in talon-like nails.

“I wonder if I could have a little word with Harriet before we start?” he said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Harriet. “The youngest champion, you know... to add a bit of color?”

“Certainly!” cried Bagman. “That is - if Harriet has no objection?” 

“Er -” said Harriet.

“Lovely,” said Peter Skeeter, and in a second, his taloned fingers had Harriet’s upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and he was steering her out of the room again and opening a nearby door.

“We don’t want to be in there with all that noise,” he said. “Let’s see... ah, yes, this is nice and cozy.”

It was a broom cupboard. Harriet stared at him.

“Come along, dear - that’s right - lovely,” said Peter Skeeter again, perching himself precariously upon an upturned bucket, pushing Harriet down onto a cardboard box, and closing the door, throwing them into darkness. “Let’s see now...”

He unsnapped his crocodile-skin bag and pulled out a handful of candles, which he lit with a wave of his wand and magicked into midair, so that they could see what they were doing.

“You won’t mind, Harriet, if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill? It leaves me free to talk to you normally...”

“A what?” said Harriet.

Peter Skeeter’s smile widened. Harriet counted three gold teeth. He reached again into his crocodile bag and drew out a long acid-green quill and a roll of parchment, which he stretched out between them on a crate of Mrs. Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. He put the tip of the green quill into his mouth, sucked it for a moment with apparent relish, then placed it upright on the parchment, where it stood balanced on its point, quivering slightly.

“Testing... my name is Peter Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter.”

Harriet looked down quickly at the quill. The moment Peter Skeeter had spoken, the green quill had started to scribble, skidding across the parchment:

‘Attractive blonde Peter Skeeter, forty-three, who’s savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations –‘

“Lovely,” said Peter Skeeter, yet again, and he ripped the top piece of parchment off, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into his handbag. Now he leaned toward Harriet and said, “So, Harriet... what made you decide to enter the Triwizard Tournament?”

“Er -” said Harriet again, but she was distracted by the quill. Even though she wasn’t speaking, it was dashing across the parchment, and in its wake she could make out a fresh sentence:

‘An ugly scar, souvenier of a tragic past, disfigures the otherwise charming face of Harriet Evans, whose eyes –‘

“Ignore the quill, Harriet,” said Peter Skeeter firmly. Reluctantly Harriet looked up at him instead. “Now — why did you decide to enter the tournament, Harriet?”

“I didn’t,” said Harriet. “I don’t know how my name got into the Goblet of Fire. I didn’t put it in there.”

Peter Skeeter raised one plucked eyebrow.

“Come now, Harriet, there’s no need to be scared of getting into trouble. We all know you shouldn’t really have entered at all. But don’t worry about that. Our readers hove a rebel.”

“But I didn’t enter,” Harriet repeated. “I don’t know who -”

“How do you feel about the tasks ahead?” said Peter Skeeter. “Excited? Nervous?”

“I haven’t really thought... yeah, nervous, I suppose,” said Harriet. Her insides squirmed uncomfortably as she spoke.

“Champions have died in the past, haven’t they?” said Peter Skeeter briskly. “Have you thought about that at all?”

“Well... they say it’s going to be a lot safer this year,” said Harriet.

The quill whizzed across the parchment between them, back and forward as though it were skating.

“Of course, you’ve looked death in the face before, haven’t you?” said Peter Skeeter, watching her closely. “How would you say that’s affected you?”

“Er,” said Harriet, yet again.

“Do you think that the trauma in your past might have made you keen to prove yourself? To live up to your name? Do you think that perhaps you were tempted to enter the Triwizard Tournament because - “

“I didn’t enter,” said Harriet, starting to feel irritated.

“Can you remember your parents at all?” said Peter Skeeter, talking over her.

“No,” said Harriet.

“How do you think they’d feel if they knew you were competing in the Triwizard Tournament? Proud? Worried? Angry?”

Harriet was feeling really annoyed now. How on earth was she to know how her parents would feel if they were alive? She could feel Peter Skeeter watching her very intently. Frowning, she avoided his gaze and hooked down at words the quill had just written:

‘Tears fill those startlingly green eyes as our conversation turns to the parents she can barely remember.’

“I have NOT got tears in my eyes!” said Harriet loudly.

Before Peter Skeeter could say a word, the door of the broom cupboard was pulled open. Harriet looked around, blinking in the bright light. Ariana Dumbledore stood there, looking down at both of them, squashed into the cupboard.

“Dumbledore!” cried Peter Skeeter, with every appearance of delight - but Harriet noticed that his quill and the parchment had suddenly vanished from the box of Magical Mess Remover, and Peter’s clawed fingers were hastily snapping shut the clasp of her crocodile-skin bag. “How are you?” he said, standing up and holding out one of his large hands to Dumbledore. “I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards’ Conference?”

“Enchantingly nasty,” said Dumbledore, her eyes twinkling. “I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat.”

Peter Skeeter didn’t look remotely abashed.

“I was just making the point that some of your ideas are a little old-fashioned, Dumbledore, and that many witches in the street -”

“I will be delighted to hear the reasoning behind the rudeness, Peter,” said Dumbledore, with a courteous bow and a smile, “but I’m afraid we will have to discuss the matter later. The Weighing of the Wands is about to start, and it cannot take place if one of our champions is hidden in a broom cupboard.”

Very glad to get away from Peter Skeeter, Harriet hurried back into the room. The other champions were now sitting in chairs near the door, and she sat down quickly next to Celia, hooking up at the velvet-covered table, where four of the five judges were now sitting - Professor Karkaroff, Monsieur Maxime, Mrs. Crouch, and Lucinda Bagman. Peter Skeeter settled himself down in a corner; Harriet saw him slip the parchment out of his bag again, spread it on his knee, suck the end of the Quick-Quotes Quill, and place it once more on the parchment.

“May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?” said Dumbledore, taking her place at the judges’ table and talking to the champions. “He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament.”

Harriet hooked around, and with a jolt of surprise saw an old wizard with large, pale eyes standing quietly by the window. Harriet had met Mr. Ollivander before - she was the wand-maker from whom Harriet had bought her own wand over three years ago in Diagon Alley.

“Monsieur Delacour, could we have you first, please?” said Mr. Ollivander, stepping into the empty space in the middle of the room.

Florian Delacour swept over to Mr. Ollivander and handed him his wand. “Hmm...” he said.

He twirled the wand between his long fingers like a baton and it emitted a number of pink and gold sparks. Then he held it chose to his eyes and examined it carefully.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “nine and a half inches... inflexible... rosewood... and containing... dear me...”

“An ‘air from ze ‘ead of a veela,” said Florian. “One of my grandmuzzer’s.”

So Florian was part veela, thought Harriet, making a mental note to tell Ronnie... then she remembered that Ronnie wasn’t speaking to her.

“Yes,” said Mr. Ollivander, “yes, I’ve never used veela hair myself, of course. I find it makes for rather temperamental wands... however, to each his own, and if this suits you...”

Mr. Ollivander ran his fingers along the wand, apparently checking for scratches or bumps; then he muttered, “Orchideous!” and a bunch of flowers burst from the wand tip.

“Very well, very well, it’s in fine working order,” said Mr. Ollivander, scooping up the flowers and handing them to Florian with his wand.

“Miss Diggory, you next.” Florian glided back to his seat, smiling at Celia as she passed him.

“Ah, now, this is one of mine, isn’t it?” said Mr. Ollivander, with much more enthusiasm, as Celia handed over her wand. “Yes, I remember it well. Containing a single hair from the tail of a particularly fine male unicorn... must have been seventeen hands; nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail. Twelve and a quarter inches... ash... pleasantly springy. It’s in fine condition... You treat it regularly?”

“Polished it last night,” said Celia, grinning.

Harriet hooked down at her own wand. She could see finger marks all over it. She gathered a fistful of robe from her knee and tried to rub it clean surreptitiously. Several gold sparks shot out of the end of it. Florian Delacour gave her a very patronizing look, and she desisted.

Mr. Ollivander sent a stream of silver smoke rings across the room from the tip of Celia’s wand, pronounced himself satisfied, and then said, “Miss Krum, if you please.”

Viktoria Krum got up and slouched, round-shouldered and duck-footed, toward Mr. Ollivander. She thrust out her wand and stood scowling, with her hands in the pockets of her robes.

“Hmm,” said Mr. Ollivander, “this is a Gregorovitch creation, unless I’m much mistaken? A fine wand-maker, though the styling is never quite what I... however...”

He lifted the wand and examined it minutely, turning it over and over before his eyes.

“Yes... hornbeam and dragon heartstring?” he shot at Krum, who nodded. “Rather thicker than one usually sees... quite rigid... ten and a quarter inches... Avis!”

The hornbeam wand let off a blast hike a gun, and a number of small, twittering birds flew out of the end and through the open window into the watery sunlight.

“Good,” said Mr. Ollivander, handing Krum back her wand. “Which leaves... Miss Evans.” Harriet got to her feet and walked past Krum to Mr. Ollivander. She handed over her wand.

“Aaaah, yes,” said Mr. Ollivander, his pale eyes suddenly gleaming. “Yes, yes, yes. How well I remember.”

Harriet could remember too. She could remember it as though it had happened yesterday...

Four summers ago, on her eleventh birthday, she had entered Mr. Ollivander’s shop with Hagrid to buy a wand. Mr. Ollivander had taken her measurements and then started handing her wands to try. Harriet had waved what felt like every wand in the shop, until at last she had found the one that suited her - this one, which was made of holly, eleven inches long, and contained a single feather from the tail of a phoenix. Mr. Ollivander had been very surprised that Harriet had been so compatible with this wand. “Curious,” he had said, “curious,” and not until Harriet asked what was curious had Mr. Ollivander explained that the phoenix feather in Harriet’s wand had come from the same bird that had supplied the core of Lord Voldemort’s.

Harriet had never shared this piece of information with anybody. She was very fond of her wand, and as far as she was concerned its relation to Voldemort’s wand was something it couldn’t help - rather as she couldn’t help being related to Uncle Peter. However, she really hoped that Mr. Ollivander wasn’t about to tell the room about it. She had a funny feeling Peter Skeeter’s Quick- Quotes Quill might just explode with excitement if he did.

Mr. Ollivander spent much longer examining Harriet’s wand than anyone else’s. Eventually, however, he made a fountain of wine shoot out of it, and handed it back to Harriet, announcing that it was still in perfect condition.

“Thank you all,” said Dumbledore, standing up at the judges’ table. “You may go back to your lessons now - or perhaps it would be quicker just to go down to dinner, as they are about to end-”

Feeling that at last something had gone right today, Harriet got up to leave, but the woman with the black camera jumped up and cleared her throat.

“Photos, Dumbledore, photos!” cried Bagman excitedly. “All the judges and champions, what do you think, Peter?”

“Er - yes, let’s do those first,” said Peter Skeeter, whose eyes were upon Harriet again. “And then perhaps some individual shots.”

The photographs took a long time. Monsieur Maxime cast everyone else into shadow wherever he stood, and the photographer couldn’t stand far enough back to get him into the frame; eventually he had to sit while everyone else stood around him. Karkaroff kept twirling her hair around her finger to give it an extra curl; Krum, whom Harriet would have thought would have been used to this sort of thing, skulked, half-hidden, at the back of the group. The photographer seemed keenest to get Florian at the front, but Peter Skeeter kept hurrying forward and dragging Harriet into greater prominence. Then he insisted on separate shots of all the champions. At last, they were free to go. Harriet went down to dinner. Hermes wasn’t there - she supposed he was still in the hospital wing having his teeth fixed. She ate alone at the end of the table, then returned to Gryffindor Tower, thinking of all the extra work on Summoning Charms that she had to do. Up in the dormitory, she came across Ronnie.

“You’ve had an owl,” said Ronnie brusquely the moment she walked in. She was pointing at Harriet’s pillow. The school barn owl was waiting for her there.

“Oh - right,” said Harriet.

“And we’ve got to do our detentions tomorrow night, Prince’s dungeon,” said Ronnie. She then walked straight out of the room, not looking at Harriet. For a moment, Harriet considered going after her - she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to talk to her or hit her, both seemed quite appealing - but the lure of Siri’s answer was too strong. Harriet strode over to the barn owl, took the letter off its leg, and unrolled it.

‘Harriet -

I can’t say everything I would like to in a letter, it’s too risky in case the owl is intercepted - we need to talk face-to-face. Can you ensure that you are alone by the fire in Gryffindor Tower at one o’clock in the morning on the 22nd of November?

I know better than anyone that you can look after yourself and while you’re around Dumbledore and Moody I don’t think anyone will be able to hurt you. However, someone seems to be having a good try. Entering you in that tournament would have been very risky, especially right under Dumbkdore’s nose.

Be on the watch, Harriet. I still want to hear about anything unusual. Let me know about the 22nd of November as quickly as you can.

Siri’


	19. The Hungarian Horntail

The prospect of talking face-to-face with Siri was all that sustained Harriet over the next fortnight, the only bright spot on a horizon that had never looked darker. The shock of finding herself school champion had worn off slightly now, and the fear of what was facing her had started to sink in. The first task was drawing steadily nearer; she felt as though it were crouching ahead of her like some horrific monster, barring her path. She had never suffered nerves like these; they were way beyond anything she had experienced before a Quidditch match, not even her last one against Slytherin, which had decided who would win the Quidditch Cup. Harriet was finding it hard to think about the future at all; she felt as though her whole life had been heading up to, and would finish with, the first task.

Admittedly, she didn’t see how Siri was going to make her feel any better about having to perform an unknown piece of difficult and dangerous magic in front of hundreds of people, but the mere sight of a friendly face would be something at the moment. Harriet wrote back to Siri saying that she would be beside the common room fire at the time Siri had suggested; and she and Hermes spent a long time going over plans for forcing any stragglers out of the common room on the night in question. If the worst came to the worst, they were going to drop a bag of Dungbombs, but they hoped they wouldn’t have to resort to that - Filch would skin them alive.

In the meantime, life became even worse for Harriet within the confines of the castle, for Peter Skeeter had published his piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a highly colored life story of Harriet. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harriet; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harriet, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Celia hadn’t been mentioned at all.

The article had appeared ten days ago, and Harriet still got a sick, burning feeling of shame in her stomach every time she thought about it. Peter Skeeter had reported her saying an awful lot of things that she couldn’t remember ever saying in her life, let alone in that broom cupboard.

‘I suppose I get my strength from my parents. I know they’d be very proud of me if they could see me now... Yes, sometimes at night I still cry about them, I’m not ashamed to admit it... I know nothing will hurt me during the tournament, because they’re watching over me...’

But Peter Skeeter had gone even further than transforming her “er’s” into long, sickly sentences: he had interviewed other people about her too.

‘Harriet has at last found love at Hogwarts. Her close friend, Colette Creevey, says that Harriet is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermes Granger, a stunningly handsome Muggle-born boy who, like Harriet, is one of the top students in the school.’

From the moment the article had appeared, Harriet had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at her as she passed and making sneering comments.

“Want a hanky, Evans, in case you start crying in Transfiguration?”

“Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Evans? Or is this a school you and Fortesque have set up together?”

“Hey - Harriet!”

“Yeah, that’s right!” Harriet found herself shouting as she wheeled around in the corridor, having had just about enough. “I’ve just been crying my eyes out over my dead dad, and I’m just off to do a bit more...”

“No - it was just - you dropped your quill.”

It was Chen. Harriet felt the color rising in her face.

“Oh - right - sorry,” she muttered, taking the quill back.

“Er... good luck on Tuesday,” he said. “I really hope you do well.” Which left Harriet feeling extremely stupid.

Hermes had come in for his fair share of unpleasantness too, but he hadn’t yet started yelling at innocent bystanders; in fact, Harriet was full of admiration for the way he was handling the situation.

“Stunningly handsome? Him?” Percy Parkinson had shrieked the first time he had come face-to-face with Hermes after Peter’s article had appeared. “What was he judging against - a chipmunk?”

“Ignore it,” Hermes said in a dignified voice, holding his head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin boys as though he couldn’t hear them. “Just ignore it, Harriet.”

But Harriet couldn’t ignore it. Ronnie hadn’t spoken to her at all since she had told her about Prince’s detentions. Harriet had half hoped they would make things up during the two hours they were forced to pickle rats’ brains in Prince’s dungeon, but that had been the day Peter’s article had appeared, which seemed to have confirmed Ronnie’s belief that Harriet was really enjoying all the attention.

Hermes was furious with the pair of them; he went from one to the other, trying to force them to talk to each other, but Harriet was adamant: she would talk to Ronnie again only if Ronnie admitted that Harriet hadn’t put her name in the Goblet of Fire and apologized for calling her a liar.

“I didn’t start this,” Harriet said stubbornly. “It’s her problem.”

“You miss her!” Hermes said impatiently. “And I know she misses you -” 

“Miss her?” said Harriet. “I don’t miss her...”

But this was a downright lie. Harriet liked Hermes very much, but he just wasn’t the same as Ronnie. There was much less laughter and a lot more hanging around in the library when Hermes was your best friend. Harriet still hadn’t mastered Summoning Charms, she seemed to have developed something of a block about them, and Hermes insisted that learning the theory would help. They consequently spent a lot of time poring over books during their lunchtimes.

Viktoria Krum was in the library an awful lot too, and Harriet wondered what she was up to. Was she studying, or was she looking for things to help her through the first task? Hermes often complained about Krum being there - not that she ever bothered them - but because groups of giggling boys often turned up to spy on her from behind bookshelves, and Hermes found the noise distracting.

“She’s not even good-looking!” he muttered angrily, glaring at Krum’s sharp profile. “They only like her because she’s famous! They wouldn’t look twice at her if she couldn’t do that Wonky Faint thing -”

“Wronski Feint,” said Harriet, through gritted teeth. Quite apart from liking to get Quidditch terms correct, it caused her another pang to imagine Ronnie’s expression if she could have heard Hermes talking about Wonky Faints.

It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. Harriet’s feeling of barely controlled panic was with her wherever she went, as everpresent as the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article.

On the Saturday before the first task, all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade. Hermes told Harriet that it would do her good to get away from the castle for a bit, and Harriet didn’t need much persuasion.

“What about Ronnie, though?” She said. “Don’t you want to go with her?”

“Oh... well...” Hermes went slightly pink. “I thought we might meet up with her in the Three Broomsticks...”

“No,” said Harriet flatly.

“Oh Harriet, this is so stupid -”

“I’ll come, but I’m not meeting Ronnie, and I’m wearing my Invisibility Cloak.”

“Oh all right then...” Hermes snapped, “but I hate talking to you in that cloak, I never know if I’m looking at you or not.”

So Harriet put on her Invisibility Cloak in the dormitory, went back downstairs, and together she and Hermes set off for Hogsmeade.

Harriet felt wonderfully free under the cloak; she watched other students walking past them as they entered the village, most of them sporting Support Celia Diggory! badges, but no horrible remarks came her way for a change, and nobody was quoting that stupid article.

“People keep looking at me now,” said Hermes grumpily as they came out of Honeydukes Sweetshop later, eating large cream-filled chocolates. “They think I’m talking to myself.”

“Don’t move your lips so much then.”

“Come on, please just take off your cloak for a bit, no one’s going to bother you here.” 

“Oh yeah?” said Harriet. “Look behind you.”

Peter Skeeter and his photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Hermes without hooking at him. Harriet backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Peter Skeeter from hitting her with his crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Harriet said, “He’s staying in the village. I bet he’s coming to watch the first task.”

As she said it, her stomach flooded with a wave of molten panic. She didn’t mention this; she and Hermes hadn’t discussed what was coming in the first task much; she had the feeling he didn’t want to think about it.

“He’s gone,” said Hermes, looking right through Harriet toward the end of the street. “Why don’t we go and have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, it’s a bit cold, isn’t it? You don’t have to talk to Ronnie!” he added irritably, correctly interpreting her silence.

The Three Broomsticks was packed, mainly with Hogwarts students enjoying their free afternoon, but also with a variety of magical people Harriet rarely saw anywhere else. Harriet supposed that as Hogsmeade was the only all-wizard village in Britain, it was a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.  
It was very hard to move through crowds in the Invisibility Cloak, in case you accidentally trod on someone, which tended to lead to awkward questions. Harriet edged slowly toward a spare table in the corner while Hermes went to buy drinks. On her way through the pub, Harriet spotted Ronnie, who was sitting with Frankie, Georgina, and Leah Jordan. Resisting the urge to give Ronnie a good hard poke in the back of the head, she finally reached the table and sat down at it.

Hermes joined her a moment later and slipped her a butterbeer under her cloak.

“I look like such an idiot, sitting here on my own,” he muttered. “Lucky I brought something to do.”

And he pulled out a notebook in which he had been keeping a record of S.P.E.W. members. Harriet saw her and Ronnie’s names at the top of the very short list.

It seemed a long time ago that they had sat making up those predictions together, and Hermes had turned up and appointed them secretary and treasurer.

“You know, maybe I should try and get some of the villagers involved in S.P.E.W.,” Hermes said thoughtfully, looking around the pub.

“Yeah, right,” said Harriet. She took a swig of butterbeer under her cloak. “Hermes, when are you going to give up on this spew stuff?”

“When house-elves have decent wages and working conditions!” he hissed back. “You know, I’m starting to think it’s time for more direct action. I wonder how you get into the school kitchens?”

“No idea, ask Frankie and Georgina,” said Harriet.

Hermes lapsed into thoughtful silence, while Harriet drank her butterbeer, watching the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Eleanor Macmillan and Hancock Abbot were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Celia Diggory! badges on their cloaks.

Right over by the door she saw Chen and a large group of his Ravenclaw friends. He wasn’t wearing a Celia badge though... This cheered up Harriet very slightly.

What wouldn’t she have given to be one of these people, sitting around laughing and talking, with nothing to worry about but homework? She imagined how it would have felt to be here if her name hadn’t come out of the Goblet of Fire. She wouldn’t be wearing the Invisibility Cloak, for one thing. Ronnie would be sitting with her. The three of them would probably be happily imagining what deadly dangerous task the school champions would be facing on Tuesday. She’d have been really hooking forward to it, watching them do whatever it was... cheering on Celia with everyone else, safe in a seat at the back of the stands...

She wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time she had seen Celia lately, she had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harriet glimpsed Florian Delacour from time to time in the corridors; he looked exactly as he always did, haughty and unruffled. And Krum just sat in the library, poring over books.

Harriet thought of Siri, and the tight, tense knot in her chest seemed to ease slightly. She would be speaking to her in just over twelve hours, for tonight was the night they were meeting at the common room fire - assuming nothing went wrong, as everything else had done lately...

“Look, it’s Hagrid!” said Hermes.

The back of Hagrid’s enormous shaggy head - she had mercifully abandoned her bunches - emerged over the crowd. Harriet wondered why she hadn’t spotted her at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, she saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had her usual enormous tankard in front of her, but Moody was drinking from her hip flask. Mr. Rosman, the attractive landlord, didn’t seem to think much of this; he was looking askance at Moody as he collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps he thought it was an insult to his mulled mead, but Harriet knew better. Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that she preferred to prepare her own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup.

As Harriet watched, she saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave. She waved, then remembered that Hagrid couldn’t see her. Moody, however, paused, her magical eye on the corner where Harriet was standing. She tapped Hagrid in the small of the back (being unable to reach her shoulder), muttered something to her, and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward Harriet and Hermes’ table.

“All right, Hermes?” said Hagrid loudly.

“Hello,” said Hermes, smiling back.

Moody limped around the table and bent down; Harriet thought she was reading the S.P.E.W. notebook, until she muttered, “Nice cloak, Evans.”

Harriet stared at her in amazement. The large chunk missing from Moody’s nose was particularly obvious at a few inches’ distance. Moody grinned.

“Can your eye - I mean, can you -?”

“Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks,” Moody said quietly. “And it’s come in useful at times, I can tell you.”

Hagrid was beaming down at Harriet too. Harriet knew Hagrid couldn’t see her, but Moody had obviously told Hagrid she was there. Hagrid now bent down on the pretext of reading the S.P.E.W. notebook as well, and said in a whisper so low that only Harriet could hear it, “Harriet, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak.”

Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, “Nice ter see yeh, Hermes,” winked, and departed. Moody followed her.

“Why does Hagrid want me to meet her at midnight?” Harriet said, very surprised.

“Does she?” said Hermes, looking startled. “I wonder what she’s up to? I don’t know whether you should go, Harriet...” He looked nervously around and hissed, “It might make you late for Siri.”

It was true that going down to Hagrid’s at midnight would mean cutting her meeting with Siri very fine indeed; Hermes suggested sending Hedwig down to Hagrid’s to tell her she couldn’t go - always assuming she would consent to take the note, of course - Harriet, however, thought it better just to be quick at whatever Hagrid wanted her for. She was very curious to know what this might be; Hagrid had never asked Harriet to visit her so late at night.

At half past eleven that evening, Harriet, who had pretended to go up to bed early, pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over herself and crept back downstairs through the common room. Quite a few people were still in there. The Creevey sisters had managed to get hold of a stack of Support Celia Diggory! badges and were trying to bewitch them to make them say Support Harriet Evans! instead. So far, however, all they had managed to do was get the badges stuck on EVANS STINKS. Harriet crept past them to the portrait hole and waited for a minute or so, keeping an eye on her watch. Then Hermes opened the Fat Lady for her from outside as they had planned. She slipped past him with a whispered “Thanks!” and set off through the castle.

The grounds were very dark. Harriet walked down the lawn toward the lights shining in Hagrid’s cabin. The inside of the enormous Beauxbatons carriage was also lit up; Harriet could hear Monsieur Maxime talking inside it as she knocked on Hagrid’s front door.

“You there, Harriet?” Hagrid whispered, opening the door and looking around.

“Yeah,” said Harriet, slipping inside the cabin and pulling the cloak down off her head. “What’s up?”

“Got summat ter show yeh,” said Hagrid.

There was an air of enormous excitement about Hagrid. She was wearing a flower that resembled an oversized artichoke in her buttonhole. It looked as though she had abandoned the use of axle grease, but she had certainly attempted to comb her hair - Harriet could see the comb’s broken teeth tangled in it.

“What’re you showing me?” Harriet said warily, wondering if the skrewts had laid eggs, or Hagrid had managed to buy another giant three-headed dog off a stranger in a pub.

“Come with me, keep quiet, an’ keep yerself covered with that cloak,” said Hagrid. “We won’ take Fang, he won’ like it...”

“Listen, Hagrid, I can’t stay long... I’ve got to be back up at the castle by one o’clock -”

But Hagrid wasn’t listening; she was opening the cabin door and striding off into the night. Harriet hurried to follow and found, to her great surprise, that Hagrid was leading him to the Beauxbatons carriage.

“Hagrid, what -?”

“Shhh!” said Hagrid, and she knocked three times on the door bearing the crossed golden wands.

Monsieur Maxime opened it. He was wearing a silk shawl wrapped around his massive shoulders. He smiled when he saw Hagrid.

“Ah, ‘Agrid... it is time?”

“Bong-sewer,” said Hagrid, beaming at him, and holding out a hand to help him down the golden steps.

Monsieur Maxime closed the door behind him, Hagrid offered him her arm, and they set off around the edge of the paddock containing Monsieur Maxime’s giant winged horses, with Harriet, totally bewildered, running to keep up with them. Had Hagrid wanted to show her Monsieur Maxime? She could see him any old time she wanted... he wasn’t exactly hard to miss... But it seemed that Monsieur Maxime was in for the same treat as Harriet, because after a while he said playfully, “Wair is it you are taking me, ‘Agrid?”

“Yeh’ll enjoy this,” said Hagrid gruffly, “worth seein’, trust me. On’y - don’ go tellin’ anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh’re not s’posed ter know.”

“Of course not,” said Monsieur Maxime, fluttering his strange black eyelashes.

And still they walked, Harriet getting more and more irritated as she jogged along in their wake, checking her watch every now and then. Hagrid had some harebrained scheme in hand, which might make her miss Siri. If they didn’t get there soon, she was going to turn around, go straight back to the castle, and leave Hagrid to enjoy her moonlit stroll with Monsieur Maxime. But then - when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight - Harriet heard something. Women were shouting up ahead... then came a deafening, earsplitting roar... Hagrid led Monsieur Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harriet hurried up alongside them - for a split second, she thought she was seeing bonfires, and women darting around them - and then her mouth fell open.

Dragons. Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting - torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizardhike than the others, which was nearest to them.

At least thirty witches, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized, Harriet looked up, high above her, and saw the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat’s, bulging with either fear or rage, she couldn’t tell which... It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream.

“Keep back there, Hagrid!” yelled a witch near the fence, straining on the chain she was holding. “They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I’ve seen this Horntail do forty!”

“Is’n’ it beautiful?” said Hagrid softly.

“It’s no good!” yelled another witch. “Stunning Spells, on the count of three!” 

Harriet saw each of the dragon keepers pull out their wand.

“Stupefy!” they shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons’ scaly hides - Harriet watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs; its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking - then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scalyblack dragon hit the ground with a thud that Harriet could have sworn made the trees behind her quake.

The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.

“Wan’ a closer look?” Hagrid asked Monsieur Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Harriet followed. The witch who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harriet realized who it was: Charlie Prewett.

“All right, Hagrid?” she panted, coming over to talk. “They should be okay now - we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet - but, like you saw, they weren’t happy, not happy at all -”

“What breeds you got here, Charlie?” said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something chose to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harriet could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.

“This is a Hungarian Horntail,” said Charlie. “There’s a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray — and a Chinese Fireball, that’s the red.” Charlie looked around; Monsieur Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.

“I didn’t know you were bringing him, Hagrid,” Charlie said, frowning. “The champions aren’t supposed to know what’s coming - he’s bound to tell his student, isn’t he?”

“Jus’ thought he’d like ter see ‘em,” shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons. 

“Really romantic date, Hagrid,” said Charlie, shaking her head.

“Four...” said Hagrid, “so it’s one fer each o’ the champions, is it? What’ve they gotta do - fight ‘em?”

“Just get past them, I think,” said Charlie. “We’ll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don’t know why... but I tell you this, I don’t envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end’s as dangerous as its front, look.”

Charlie pointed toward the Horntail’s tail, and Harriet saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches.

Five of Charlie’s fellow keepers staggered up to the Horntail at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Horntail’s side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.

“I’ve got them counted, Hagrid,” said Charlie sternly. Then she said, “How’s Harriet?” 

“Fine,” said Hagrid. She was still gazing at the eggs.

“Just hope she’s still fine after she’s faced this lot,” said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons’ enclosure. “I didn’t dare tell Dad what she’s got to do for the first task; he’s already having kittens about her...” Charlie imitated her father’s anxious voice. “How could they let her enter that tournament, she’s much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit! He was in floods after that Daily Prophet article about her. ‘She still cries about her parents! Oh bless her, I never knew!’”

Harriet had had enough. Trusting to the fact that Hagrid wouldn’t miss her, with the attractions of four dragons and Monsieur Maxime to occupy her, she turned silently and began to walk away, back to the castle.

She didn’t know whether she was glad she’d seen what was coming or not. Perhaps this way was better. The first shock was over now. Maybe if she’d seen the dragons for the first time on Tuesday, she would have passed out cold in front of the whole school... but maybe she would anyway... She was going to be armed with her wand - which, just now, felt like nothing more than a narrow strip of wood — against a fifty-foot-high, scaly, spike-ridden, fire-breathing dragon. And she had to get past it. With everyone watching. How?

Harriet sped up, skirting the edge of the forest; she had just under fifteen minutes to get back to the fireside and talk to Siri, and she couldn’t remember, ever, wanting to talk to someone more than she did right now — when, without warning, she ran into something very solid.

Harriet fell backward, her glasses askew, clutching the cloak around her. A voice nearby said, “Ouch! Who’s there?”

Harriet hastily checked that the cloak was covering her and lay very still, staring up at the dark outline of the witch she had hit. She recognized the haircut... it was Karkaroff.

“Who’s there?” said Karkaroff again, very suspiciously, looking around in the darkness. Harriet remained still and silent. After a minute or so, Karkaroff seemed to decide that she had hit some sort of animal; she was looking around at waist height, as though expecting to see a dog. Then she crept back under the cover of the trees and started to edge forward toward the place where the dragons were.

Very slowly and very carefully, Harriet got to her feet and set off again as fast as she could without making too much noise, hurrying through the darkness back toward Hogwarts.

She had no doubt whatsoever what Karkaroff was up to. She had sneaked off her ship to try and find out what the first task was going to be. She might even have spotted Hagrid and Monsieur Maxime heading off around the forest together – they were hardly difficult to spot at a distance... and now all Karkaroff had to do was follow the sound of voices, and she, like Monsieur Maxime, would know what was in store for the champions.

By the looks of it, the only champion who would be facing the unknown on Tuesday was Celia. Harriet reached the castle, slipped in through the front doors, and began to climb the marble stairs; she was very out of breath, but she didn’t dare slow down... she had less than five minutes to get up to the fire.

“Balderdash!” She gasped at the Fat Lady, who was snoozing in her frame in front of the portrait hole.

“If you say so,” she muttered sleepily, without opening her eyes, and the picture swung forward to admit her. Harriet climbed inside. The common room was deserted, and, judging by the fact that it smelled quite normal, Hermes had not needed to set off any Dungbombs to ensure that she and Siri got privacy. Harriet pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and threw herself into an armchair in front of the fire. The room was in semidarkness; the flames were the only source of light. Nearby, on a table, the Support Celia Diggory! badges the Creeveys had been trying to improve were glinting in the firelight. They now read EVANS REALLY STINKS. Harriet looked back into the flames, and jumped. Siri’s head was sitting in the fire. If Harriet hadn’t seen Mrs. Diggory do exactly this back in the Prewett’s kitchen, it would have scared her out of her wits.

Instead, her face breaking into the first smile she had worn for days, she scrambled out of her chair, crouched down by the hearth, and said, “Siri - how’re you doing?”

Siri looked different from Harriet’s memory of her. When they had said goodbye, Siri’s face had been gaunt and sunken, surrounded by a quantity of long, black, matted hair - but the hair was short and clean now, Siri’s face was fuller, and she looked younger, much more like the only photograph Harriet had of her, which had been taken at the Evans’ wedding.

“Never mind me, how are you?” said Siri seriously.

“I’m -” For a second, Harriet tried to say “fine” - but she couldn’t do it. Before she could stop herself, she was talking more than she’d talked in days - about how no one believed she hadn’t entered the tournament of her own free will, how Peter Skeeter had lied about her in the Daily Prophet, how she couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at - and about Ronnie, Ronnie not believing her, Ronnie’s jealousy...

“... and now Hagrid’s just shown me what’s coming in the first task, and it’s dragons, Siri, and I’m a goner,” she finished desperately.

Siri looked at her, eyes full of concern, eyes that had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them - that deadened, haunted look. She had let Harriet talk herself into silence without interruption, but now she said, “Dragons we can deal with, Harriet, but we’ll get to that in a minute - I haven’t got long here... I’ve broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about.”

“What?” said Harriet, feeling her spirits slip a further few notches... Surely there could be nothing worse than dragons coming?

“Karkaroff,” said Siri. “Harriet, she was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don’t you?”

“Yes - she - what?”

“She was caught, she was in Azkaban with me, but she got released. I’d bet everything that’s why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year – to keep an eye on her. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put her into Azkaban in the first place.”

“Karkaroff got released?” Harriet said slowly - her brain seemed to be struggling to absorb yet another piece of shocking information. “Why did they release her?”

“She did a deal with the Ministry of Magic,” said Siri bitterly. “She said she’d seen the error of her ways, and then she named names... she put a load of other people into Azkaban in her place... She’s not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since she got out, from what I can tell, she’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of hers. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.”

“Okay,” said Harriet slowly. “But... are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if she did, she’s a really good actor. She seemed furious about it. She wanted to stop me from competing.”

“We know she’s a good actor,” said Siri, “because she convinced the Ministry of Magic to set her free, didn’t she? Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harriet...”

“- you and the rest of the world,” said Harriet bitterly.

“- and reading between the lines of that Skeeter man’s article last month, Moody was attacked the night before she started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know he says it was another false alarm,” Siri said hastily, seeing Harriet about to speak, “but I don’t think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop her from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with her around. And no one’s going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye’s heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn’t mean she can’t still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had.”

“So... what are you saying?” said Harriet slowly. “Karkaroff’s trying to kill me? But - why?”

Siri hesitated.

“I’ve been hearing some very strange things,” she said slowly. “The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn’t they? Someone set off the Dark Mark... and then - did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who’s gone missing?”

“Bertha Jorkins?” said Harriet.

“Exactly... she disappeared in Albania, and that’s definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last... and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn’t she?”

“Yeah, but... it’s not very likely she’d have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?” said Harriet.

“Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins,” said Siri grimly. “She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your mum and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It’s not a good combination, Harriet. I’d say she’d be very easy to lure into a trap.”

“So... so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?” said Harriet. “Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?”

“I don’t know,” said Siri slowly, “I just don’t know... Karkaroff doesn’t strike me as the type who’d go back to Voldemort unless she knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect her. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.”

“Looks like a really good plan from where I’m standing,” said Harriet grinning bleaky. “They’ll just have to stand back and let the dragons do their stuff.”

“Right - these dragons,” said Siri, speaking very quickly now. “There’s a way, Harriet. Don’t be tempted to try a Stunning Spell - dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon -”

“Yeah, I know, I just saw,” said Harriet.

“But you can do it alone,” said Siri. “There is away, and a simple spell’s all you need. Just -”

But Harriet held up a hand to silence her, her heart suddenly pounding as though it would burst. She could hear footsteps coming down the spiral staircase behind her.

“Go!” she hissed at Siri. “Go! There’s someone coming!”

Harriet scrambled to her feet, hiding the fire - if someone saw Siri’s face within the walls of Hogwarts, they would raise an almighty uproar - the Ministry would get dragged in - she, Harriet, would be questioned about Siri’s whereabouts - Harriet heard a tiny pop! in the fire behind her and knew Siri had gone. She watched the bottom of the spiral staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o’clock in the morning, and stopped Siri from telling her how to get past a dragon? It was Ronnie. Dressed in her maroon paisley pajamas, Ronnie stopped dead facing Harriet across the room, and looked around. 

“Who were you talking to?” she said.

“What’s that got to do with you?” Harriet snarled. “What are you doing down here at this time of night?”

“I just wondered where you -” Ronnie broke off, shrugging. “Nothing. I’m going back to bed.”

“Just thought you’d come nosing around, did you?” Harriet shouted. She knew that Ronnie had no idea what she’d walked in on, knew she hadn’t done it on purpose, but she didn’t care - at this moment she hated everything about Ronnie, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath her pajama trousers.

“Sorry about that,” said Ronnie, her face reddening with anger. “Should’ve realized you didn’t want to be disturbed. I’ll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace.”

Harriet seized one of the EVANS REALLY STINKS badges off the table and chucked it, as hard as she could, across the room. It hit Ronnie on the forehead and bounced off.

“There you go,” Harriet said. “Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you’re lucky... That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She strode across the room toward the stairs; she half expected Ronnie to stop her, she would even have liked Ronnie to throw a punch at her, but Ronnie just stood there in her too-small pajamas, and Harriet, having stormed upstairs, lay awake in bed fuming for a long time afterward and didn’t hear her come up to bed.


	20. The First Task

Harriet got up on Sunday morning and dressed so inattentively that it was a while before she realised she was trying to pull her hat onto her foot instead of her sock. When she’d finally got all her clothes on the right parts of her body, she hurried off to find Hermes, locating him at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where he was eating breakfast with Jerry. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harriet waited until Hermes had swallowed his last spoonful of porridge, then dragged him out onto the grounds. There, she told him all about the dragons, and about everything Siri had said, while they took another long walk around the lake.

Alarmed as he was by Siri’s warnings about Karkaroff, Hermes still thought that the dragons were the more pressing problem.

“Let’s just try and keep you alive until Tuesday evening,” he said desperately, “and then we can worry about Karkaroff.”

They walked three times around the lake, trying all the way to think of a simple spell that would subdue a dragon. Nothing whatsoever occurred to them, so they retired to the library instead. Here, Harriet pulled down every book she could find on dragons, and both of them set to work searching through the large pile.

“Talon-clipping by charms... treating scale-rot... This is no good, this is for nutters like Hagrid who want to keep them healthy...”

“Dragons are extremely difficult to slay, owing to the ancient magic that imbues their thick hides, which none but the most powerful spells can penetrate... ’ But Siri said a simple one would do it...

“Let’s try some simple spellbooks, then,” said Harriet, throwing aside Women Who Love Dragons Too Much.

She returned to the table with a pile of spellbooks, set them down, and began to flick through each in turn, Hermes whispering nonstop at her elbow.

“Well, there are Switching Spells... but what’s the point of Switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine-gums or something that would make it less dangerous... The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon’s hide... I’d say Transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven’t got a hope, I doubt even Professor McGonagall... unless you’re supposed to put the spell on yourself? Maybe to give yourself extra powers? But they’re not simple spells, I mean, we haven’t done any of those in class, I only know about them because I’ve been doing O.W.L. practice papers...”

“Hermes,” Harriet said, through gritted teeth, “will you shut up for a bit, please? I m trying to concentrate.”

But all that happened, when Hermes fell silent, was that Harriet’s brain filled with a sort of blank buzzing, which didn’t seem to allow room for concentration. She stared hopelessly down the index of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed. Instant scalping... but dragons had no hair... pepper breath... that would probably increase a dragon’s firepower... horn tongue... just what she needed, to give it an extra weapon...

“Oh no, she’s back again, why can’t she read on her stupid ship?” said Hermes irritably as Viktoria Krum slouched in, cast a surly look over at the pair of them, and settled herself in a distant corner with a pile of books. “Come on, Harriet, we’ll go back to the common room... her fan club’ll be here in a moment, twittering away... “

And sure enough, as they left the library, a gang of boys tiptoed past them, one of them wearing a Bulgaria scarf tied around his waist.

Harriet barely slept that night. When she awoke on Monday morning, she seriously considered for the first time ever just running away from Hogwarts. But as she looked around the Great Hall at breakfast time, and thought about what leaving the castle would mean, she knew she couldn’t do it. It was the only place she had ever been happy... well, she supposed she must have been happy with her parents too, but she couldn’t remember that.

Somehow, the knowledge that she would rather be here and facing a dragon than back on Privet Drive with Diana was good to know; it made her feel slightly calmer. She finished her bacon with difficulty (her throat wasn’t working too well), and as she and Hermes got up, she saw Celia Diggory leaving the Hufflepuff table.

Celia still didn’t know about the dragons... the only champion who didn’t, if Harriet was right in thinking that Maxime and Karkaroff would have told Florian and Krum...

“Hermes, I’ll see you in the greenhouses,” Harriet said, coming to her decision as she watched Celia leaving the Hall. “Go on, I’ll catch you up.”

“Harriet, you’ll be late, the bell’s about to ring -” 

“I’ll catch you up, okay?”

By the time Harriet reached the bottom of the marble staircase, Celia was at the top. She was with a load of sixth-year friends. Harriet didn’t want to talk to Celia in front of them; they were among those who had been quoting Peter Skeeter’s article at her every time she went near them. She followed Celia at a distance and saw that she was heading toward the Charms corridor. This gave Harriet an idea. Pausing at a distance from them, she pulled out her wand, and took careful aim.

“Diffindo!”

Celia’s bag split. Parchment, quills, and books spilled out of it onto the floor. Several bottles of ink smashed.

“Don’t bother,” said Celia in an exasperated voice as her friends bent down to help her. “Tell Flitwick I’m coming, go on...”

This was exactly what Harriet had been hoping for. She slipped her wand back into her robes, waited until Celia’s friends had disappeared into their classroom, and hurried up the corridor, which was now empty of everyone but herself and Celia.

“Hi,” said Celia, picking up a copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration that was now splattered with ink. “My bag just split... brand-new and all...”

“Celia,” said Harriet, “the first task is dragons.” 

“What?” said Celia, looking up.

“Dragons,” said Harriet, speaking quickly, in case Professor Flitwick came out to see where Celia had got to. “They’ve got four, one for each of us, and we’ve got to get past them.”

Celia stared at her. Harriet saw some of the panic she’d been feeling since Saturday night flickering in Celia’s grey eyes.

“Are you sure?” Celia said in a hushed voice.

“Dead sure,” said Harriet. “I’ve seen them.”

“But how did you find out? We’re not supposed to know...”

“Never mind,” said Harriet quickly - she knew Hagrid would be in trouble if she told the truth. “But I’m not the only one who knows. Florian and Krum will know by now - Maxime and Karkaroff both saw the dragons too.”

Celia straightened up, her arms full of inky quills, parchment, and books, her ripped bag dangling off one shoulder. She stared at Harriet, and there was a puzzled, almost suspicious look in her eyes.

“Why are you telling me?” She asked.

Harriet looked at her in disbelief. She was sure Celia wouldn’t have asked that if she had seen the dragons herself. Harriet wouldn’t have let her worst enemy face those monsters unprepared - well, perhaps Black or Prince...

“It’s just... fair, isn’t it?” she said to Celia. “We all know now... we’re on an even footing, aren’t we?”

Celia was still hooking at her in a slightly suspicious way when Harriet heard a familiar clunking noise behind her. She turned around and saw Mad-Eye Moody emerging from a nearby classroom.

“Come with me, Evans,” she growled. “Diggory, off you go.” 

Harriet stared apprehensively at Moody. Had she overheard them? “Er - Professor, I’m supposed to be in Herbology -”

“Never mind that, Evans. In my office, please...”

Harriet followed her, wondering what was going to happen to her now. What if Moody wanted to know how she’d found out about the dragons? Would Moody go to Dumbledore and tell on Hagrid, or just turn Harriet into a ferret? Well, it might be easier to get past a dragon if she were a ferret, Harriet thought dully, she’d be smaller, much less easy to see from a height of fifty feet... She followed Moody into her office. Moody closed the door behind them and turned to look at Harriet, her magical eye fixed upon her as well as the normal one.

“That was a very decent thing you just did, Evans,” Moody said quietly. Harriet didn’t know what to say; this wasn’t the reaction she had expected at all. “Sit down,” said Moody, and Harriet sat, looking around.

She had visited this office under two of its previous occupants. In Professor Lockhart’s day, the walls had been plastered with beaming, winking pictures of Professor Lockhart herself. When Howell had lived here, you were more likely to come across a specimen of some fascinating new Dark creature she had procured for them to study in class. Now, however, the office was full of a number of exceptionally odd objects that Harriet supposed Moody had used in the days when she had been an Auror.

On her desk stood what looked like a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Harriet recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because she owned one herself, though it was much smaller than Moody’s. In the corner on a small table stood an object that looked something like an extra- squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite Harriet on the wall, but it was not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures were moving around inside it, none of them clearly in focus.

“Like my Dark Detectors, do you?” said Moody, who was watching Harriet closely. 

“What’s that?” Harriet asked, pointing at the squiggly golden aerial.

“Secrecy Sensor. Vibrates when it detects concealment and lies... no use here, of course, too much interference - students in every direction lying about why they haven’t done their homework. Been humming ever since I got here. I had to disable my Sneakoscope because it wouldn’t stop whistling. It’s extra-sensitive, picks up stuff about a mile around. Of course, it could be picking up more than kid stuff,” she added in a growl.

“And what’s the mirror for?”

“Oh that’s my Foe-Glass. See them out there, skulking around? I’m not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes. That’s when I open my trunk.”

She let out a short, harsh laugh, and pointed to the large trunk under the window. It had seven keyholes in a row. Harriet wondered what was in there, until Moody’s next question brought her sharply back to earth.

“So... found out about the dragons, have you?”

Harriet hesitated. She’s been afraid of this - but she hadn’t told Celia, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell Moody, that Hagrid had broken the rules.

“It’s all right,” said Moody, sitting down and stretching out his wooden leg with a groan. “Cheating’s a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and always has been.”

“I didn’t cheat,” said Harriet sharply. “It was - a sort of accident that I found out.”

Moody grinned. “I wasn’t accusing you, lassie. I’ve been telling Dumbledore from the start, she can be as high-minded as she likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won’t be. They’ll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They’d like to prove she’s only human.”

Moody gave another harsh laugh, and her magical eye swiveled around so fast it made Harriet feel queasy to watch it.

“So... got any ideas how you’re going to get past your dragon yet?” said Moody. 

“No,” said Harriet.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” said Moody gruffly. “I don’t show favoritism, me. I’m just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is – play to your strengths.”

“I haven’t got any,” said Harriet, before she could stop herself.

“Excuse me,” growled Moody, “you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them. Think now. What are you best at?”

Harriet tried to concentrate. What was she best at? Well, that was easy, really – 

“Quidditch,” she said dully, “and a fat lot of help -”

“That’s right,” said Moody, staring at her very hard, her magical eye barely moving at all. “You’re a damn good flier from what I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, but...” Harriet stared at her. “I’m not allowed a broom, I’ve only got my wand...”

“My second piece of general advice,” said Moody loudly, interrupting her, “is to use a nice, simple spell that will enable you to get what you need.”

Harriet looked at her blankly. What did she need?

“Come on, girl...” whispered Moody. “Put them together... it’s not that difficult...”

And it clicked. She was best at flying. She needed to pass the dragon in the air. For that, she needed her Firebolt. And for her Firebolt, she needed –

“Hermes,” Harriet whispered, when she had sped into greenhouse three minutes later, uttering a hurried apology to Professor Sprout as she passed him. “Hermes - I need you to help me.”

“What d’you think I’ve been trying to do, Harriet?” he whispered back, his eyes round with anxiety over the top of the quivering Flutterby Bush he was pruning.

“Hermes, I need to learn how to do a Summoning Charm properly by tomorrow afternoon.”

And so they practiced. They didn’t have lunch, but headed for a free classroom, where Harriet tried with all her might to make various objects fly across the room toward her. She was still having problems. The books and quills kept losing heart halfway across the room and dropping hike stones to the floor.

“Concentrate, Harriet, concentrate...”

“What d’you think I’m trying to do?” said Harriet angrily. “A great big dragon keeps popping up in my head for some reason... Okay, try again...”

She wanted to skip Divination to keep practicing, but Hermes refused pointblank to skive off Arithmancy, and there was no point in staying without him. She therefore had to endure over an hour of Professor Trelawney, who spent half the lesson telling everyone that the position of Mars with relation to Saturn at that moment meant that people born in July were in great danger of sudden, violent deaths.

“Well, that’s good,” said Harriet loudly, her temper getting the better of her, “just as long as it’s not drawn-out. I don’t want to suffer.”

Ronnie looked for a moment as though she was going to laugh; she certainly caught Harriet’s eye for the first time in days, but Harriet was still feeling too resentful toward Ronnie to care. She spent the rest of the lesson trying to attract small objects toward her under the table with her wand. She managed to make a fly zoom straight into her hand, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was her prowess at Summoning Charms - perhaps the fly was just stupid.

She forced down some dinner after Divination, then returned to the empty classroom with Hermes, using the Invisibility Cloak to avoid the teachers. They kept practicing until past midnight. They would have stayed longer, but Peeves turned up and, pretending to think that Harriet wanted things thrown at her, started chucking chairs across the room. Harriet and Hermes left in a hurry before the noise attracted Filch, and went back to the Gryffindor common room, which was now mercifully empty.

At two o’clock in the morning, Harriet stood near the fireplace, surrounded by heaps of objects: books, quills, several upturned chairs, an old set of Gobstones, and Netta’s toad, Trevor. Only in the last hour had Harriet really got the hang of the Summoning Charm.

“That’s better, Harriet, that’s loads better,” Hermes said, looking exhausted but very pleased.

“Well, now we know what to do next time I can’t manage a spell,” Harriet said, throwing a rune dictionary back to Hermes, so s could try again, “threaten me with a dragon. Right...” She raised her wand once more. “Accio Dictionary!” The heavy book soared out of Hermes’ hand, flew across the room, and Harriet caught it.

“Harriet, I really think you’ve got it!” said Hermes delightedly.

“Just as long as it works tomorrow,” Harriet said. “The Firebolt’s going to be much farther away than the stuff in here, it’s going to be in the castle, and I’m going to be out there on the grounds...”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Hermes firmly. “Just as long as you’re concentrating really, really hard on it, it’ll come. Harriet, we’d better get some sleep... you’re going to need it.”

Harriet had been focusing so hard on learning the Summoning Charm that evening that some of her blind panic had heft her. It returned in full measure, however, on the following morning. The atmosphere in the school was one of great tension and excitement. Lessons were to stop at midday, giving all the students time to get down to the dragons’ enclosure - though of course, they didn’t yet know what they would find there.

Harriet felt oddly separate from everyone around her, whether they were wishing her good luck or hissing “We’ll have a box of tissues ready, Evans” as she passed.

It was a state of nervousness so advanced that she wondered whether she mightn’t just lose her head when they tried to lead her out to her dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment she seemed to be sitting down in her first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch... and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to her in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching.

“Evans, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now... You have to get ready for your first task.”

“Okay,” said Harriet, standing up, her fork falling onto her plate with a clatter. 

“Good luck, Harriet,” Hermes whispered. “You’ll be fine!”

“Yeah,” said Harriet in a voice that was most unlike her own.

She left the Great Hall with Professor McGonagall. He didn’t seem himself either; in fact, he looked nearly as anxious as Hermes. As he walked her down the stone steps and out into the cold November afternoon, he put his hand on her shoulder.

“Now, don’t panic,” he said, “just keep a cool head... We’ve got witches standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand... The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you... Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Harriet heard herself say. “Yes, I’m fine.”

He was leading her toward the place where the dragons were, around the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of trees behind which the enclosure would be clearly visible, Harriet saw that a tent had been erected, its entrance facing them, screening the dragons from view.

“You’re to go in here with the other champions,” said Professor McGonagall, in a rather shaky sort of voice, “and wait for your turn, Evans. Mrs. Bagman is in there... she’ll be telling you the - the procedure... Good luck.”

“Thanks,” said Harriet, in a flat, distant voice. He left her at the entrance of the tent. Harriet went inside.

Florian Delacour was sitting in a corner on a how wooden stool. He didn’t look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktoria Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Harriet supposed was her way of showing nerves. Celia was pacing up and down. When Harriet entered, Celia gave her a small smile, which Harriet returned, feeling the muscles in her face working rather hard, as though they had forgotten how to do it.

“Harriet! Good-o!” said Bagman happily, looking around at her. “Come in, come in, make yourself at home!”

Bagman looked somehow like a slightly overblown cartoon figure, standing amid all the pale-faced champions. She was wearing her old Wasp robes again. “Well, now we’re all here - time to fill you in!” said Bagman brightly. “When the audience has assembled, I’m going to be offering each of you this bag” - she held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them - “from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different - er - varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too... ah, yes... your task is to collect the golden egg!”

Harriet glanced around. Celia had nodded once, to show that she understood Bagman’s words, and then started pacing around the tent again; she looked slightly green. Florian Delacour and Krum hadn’t reacted at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths; that was certainly how Harriet felt. But they, at least, had volunteered for this...

And in no time at all, hundreds upon hundreds of pairs of feet could be heard passing the tent, their owners talking excitedly, laughing, joking... Harriet felt as separate from the crowd as though they were a different species. And then – it seemed like about a second later to Harriet - Bagman was opening the neck of the purple silk sack.

“Gentlemen first,” she said, offering it to Florian Delacour.

He put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon - a Welsh Green. It had the number two around its neck and Harriet knew, by the fact that Florian showed no sign of surprise, but rather a determined resignation, that she had been right: Monsieur Maxime had told him what was coming.

The same held true for Krum. She pulled out the scarlet Chinese Fireball. It had a number three around its neck. She didn’t even blink, just sat back down and stared at the ground.

Celia put her hand into the bag, and out came the blueish-gray Swedish Short-Snout, the number one tied around its neck. Knowing what was left, Harriet put her hand into the silk bag and pulled out the Hungarian Horntail, and the number four. It stretched its wings as she looked down at it, and bared its minuscule fangs.

“Well, there you are!” said Bagman. “You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I’m going to have to leave you in a moment, because I’m commentating. Miss Diggory, you’re first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now... Harriet... could I have a quick word? Outside?”

“Er... yes,” said Harriet blankly, and she got up and went out of the tent with Bagman, who walked her a short distance away, into the trees, and then turned to her with a fatherly expression on her face.

“Feeling all right, Harriet? Anything I can get you?”

“What?” said Harriet. “I - no, nothing.”

“Got a plan?” said Bagman, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Because I don’t mind sharing a few pointers, if you’d like them, you know. I mean,” Bagman continued, lowering his voice still further, “you’re the underdog here, Harriet... Anything I can do to help...”

“No,” said Harriet so quickly she knew she had sounded rude, “no - I - I know what I’m going to do, thanks.”

“Nobody would know, Harriet,” said Bagman, winking at her.

“No, I’m fine,” said Harriet, wondering why she kept telling people this, and wondering whether she had ever been less fine. “I’ve got a plan worked out, I -”

A whistle had blown somewhere.

“Good lord, I’ve got to run!” said Bagman in alarm, and she hurried off.

Harriet walked back to the tent and saw Celia emerging from it, greener than ever. Harriet tried to wish her luck as she walked past, but all that came out of her mouth was a sort of hoarse grunt. Harriet went back inside to Florian and Krum. Seconds hater, they heard the roar of the crowd, which meant Celia had entered the enclosure and was now face-to face with the living counterpart of her model.

It was worse than Harriet could ever have imagined, sitting there and listening. The crowd screamed... yelled... gasped like a single many-headed entity, as Celia did whatever she was doing to get past the Swedish Short-Snout. Krum was still staring at the ground. Florian had now taken to retracing Celia’s steps, around and around the tent. And Bagman’s commentary made everything much, much worse... Horrible pictures formed in Harriet’s mind as she heard: “Oooh, narrow miss there, very narrow”... “She’s taking risks, this one!”... “Clever move - pity it didn’t work!”

And then, after about fifteen minutes, Harriet heard the deafening roar that could mean only one thing: Celia had gotten past her dragon and captured the golden egg.

“Very good indeed!” Bagman was shouting. “And now the marks from the judges!”

But she didn’t shout out the marks; Harriet supposed the judges were holding them up and showing them to the crowd.

“One down, three to go!” Bagman yelled as the whistle blew again. “Mr. Delacour, if you please!”

Florian was trembling from head to foot; Harriet felt more warmly toward him than she had done so far as he heft the tent with his head held high and his hand clutching his wand. She and Krum were left alone, at opposite sides of the tent, avoiding each other’s gaze.

The same process started again...“Oh I’m not sure that was wise!” they could hear Bagman shouting gleefully. “Oh... nearly! Careful now... good lord, I thought he’d had it then!”

Ten minutes later, Harriet heard the crowd erupt into applause once more... Florian must have been successful too. A pause, while Florian’s marks were being shown... more clapping... then, for the third time, the whistle.

“And here comes Miss Krum!” cried Bagman, and Krum slouched out, leaving Harriet quite alone.

She felt much more aware of her body than usual; very aware of the way her heart was pumping fast, and her fingers tingling with fear... yet at the same time, she seemed to be outside herself, seeing the walls of the tent, and hearing the crowd, as though from far away.

“Very daring!” Bagman was yelling, and Harriet heard the Chinese Fireball emit a horrible, roaring shriek, while the crowd drew its collective breath. “That’s some nerve she’s showing - and - yes, she’s got the egg!”

Applause shattered the wintery air like breaking glass; Krum had finished – it would be Harriet’s turn any moment.

She stood up, noticing dimly that her legs seemed to be made of marshmallow. She waited. And then she heard the whistle blow. She walked out through the entrance of the tent, the panic rising into a crescendo inside him. And now she was walking past the trees, through a gap in the enclosure fence.

She saw everything in front of her as though it was a very highly colored dream.

There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at her from stands that had been magicked there since she’d last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of eggs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, heaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but whether friendly or not, Harriet didn’t know or care. It was time to do what she had to do... to focus her mind, entirely and absolutely, upon the thing that was her only chance.

She raised her wand.

“Accio Firebolt!” she shouted.

Harriet waited, every fiber of her hoping, praying... If it hadn’t worked... if it wasn’t coming... She seemed to be looking at everything around her through some sort of shimmering, transparent barrier, like a heat haze, which made the enclosure and the hundreds of faces around her swim strangely...

And then she heard it, speeding through the air behind her; she turned and saw her Firebolt hurtling toward her around the edge of the woods, soaring into the enclosure, and stopping dead in midair beside her, waiting for her to mount. The crowd was making even more noise... Bagman was shouting something... but Harriet’s ears were not working properly anymore... listening wasn’t important...

She swung her leg over the broom and kicked off from the ground. And a second later, something miraculous happened...

As she soared upward, as the wind rushed through her hair, as the crowd’s faces became mere flesh-colored pinpnicks below, and the Horntail shrank to the size of a dog, she realized that she had heft not only the ground behind, but also her fear... She was back where she belonged...

This was just another Quidditch match, that was all... just another Quidditch match, and that Horntail was just another ugly opposing team.

She looked down at the clutch of eggs and spotted the gold one, gleaming against its cement-coloured fellows, residing safely between the dragon’s front legs.

“Okay,” Harriet told herself, “diversionary tactics... let’s go...”

She dived. The Horntail’s head followed her; she knew what it was going to do and pulled out of the dive just in time; a jet of fire had been released exactly where she would have been had she not swerved away... but Harriet didn’t care... that was no more than dodging a Bludger.

“Great Scott, she can fly!” yelled Bagman as the crowd shrieked and gasped. “Are you watching this, Miss Krum?”

Harriet soared higher in a circle; the Horntail was still following her progress; its head revolving on its long neck - if she kept this up, it would be nicely dizzy – but better not push it too long, or it would be breathing fire again –  
Harriet plummeted just as the Horntail opened its mouth, but this time she was less lucky - she missed the flames, but the tail came whipping up to meet her instead, and as she swerved to the left, one of the long spikes grazed her shoulder, ripping her robes —

She could feel it stinging, she could hear screaming and groans from the crowd, but the cut didn’t seem to be deep... Now she zoomed around the back of the Horntail, and a possibility occurred to her...

The Horntail didn’t seem to want to take off, she was too protective of her eggs. Though she writhed and twisted, furling and unfurling her wings and keeping those fearsome yellow eyes on Harriet, she was afraid to move too far from them... but she had to persuade her to do it, or she’d never get near them... The trick was to do it carefully, gradually...

She began to fly, first this way, then the other, not near enough to make her breathe fire to stave her off, but still posing a sufficient threat to ensure she kept her eyes on her. Her head swayed this way and that, watching her out of those vertical pupils, her fangs bared...

She flew higher. The Horntail’s head rose with her, her neck now stretched to its fullest extent, still swaying, hike a snake before its charmer... Harriet rose a few more feet, and she let out a roar of exasperation. She was like a fly to her, a fly she was longing to swat; her tail thrashed again, but she was too high to reach now... She shot fire into the air, which she dodged... Her jaws opened wide...

“Come on,” Harriet hissed, swerving tantalizingly above her, “come on, come and get me... up you get now...”

And then she reared, spreading her great, black, leathery wings at last, as wide as those of a small airplane - and Harriet dived. Before the dragon knew what she had done, or where she had disappeared to, she was speeding toward the ground as fast as she could go, toward the eggs now unprotected by her clawed front legs - she had taken her hands off his her - she had seized the golden egg –

And with a huge spurt of speed, she was off, she was soaring out over the stands, the heavy egg safely under her uninjured arm, and it was as though somebody had just turned the volume back up - for the first time, she became properly aware of the noise of the crowd, which was screaming and applauding as loudly as the Irish supporters at the World Cup -

“Look at that!” Bagman was yelling. “Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get her egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Miss Evans!”

Harriet saw the dragon keepers rushing forward to subdue the Horntail, and, over at the entrance to the enclosure, Professor McGonagalh, Professor Moody, and Hagrid hurrying to meet her, all of them waving her toward them, their smiles evident even from this distance. She flew back over the stands, the noise of the crowd pounding her eardrums, and came in smoothly to land, her heart lighter than it had been in weeks... She had got through the first task, she had survived.

“That was excellent, Evans!” cried Professor McGonagall as she got off the Firebolt - which from him was extravagant praise. She noticed that his hand shook as he pointed at her shoulder. “You’ll need to see Master Pomfrey before the judges give out your score... Over there, he’s had to mop up Diggory already...”

“Yeh did it, Harriet!” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Yeh did it! An’ agains’ the Horntail an’ all, an’ yeh know Charlie said that was the wors’ - “

“Thanks, Hagrid,” said Harriet loudly, so that Hagrid wouldn’t blunder on and reveal that she had shown Harriet the dragons beforehand.

Professor Moody looked very pleased too; her magical eye was dancing in its socket. “Nice and easy does the trick, Evans,” she growled.

“Right then, Evans, the first aid tent, please...” said Professor McGonagall.

Harriet walked out of the enclosure, still panting, and saw Master Pomfrey standing at the mouth of a second tent, looking worried.

“Dragons!” he said, in a disgusted tone, pulling Harriet inside. The tent was divided into cubicles; she could make out Celia’s shadow through the canvas, but Celia didn’t seem to be badly injured; she was sitting up, at least. Master Pomfrey examined Harriet’s shoulder, talking furiously all the while. “Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next? You’re very lucky... this is quite shallow... it’ll need cleaning before I heal it up, though...”

He cleaned the cut with a dab of some purple liquid that smoked and stung, but then poked her shoulder with his wand, and she felt it heal instantly. “Now, just sit quietly for a minute - sit! And then you can go and get your score.”

He bustled out of the tent and she heard him go next door and say, “How does it feel now, Diggory?”

Harriet didn’t want to sit still: she was too full of adrenaline. She got to her feet, wanting to see what was going on outside, but before she’d reached the mouth of the tent, two people had come darting inside - Hermes, followed closely by Ronnie.

“Harriet, you were brilliant!” Hermes said squeakily. There were fingernail marks on his face where he had been clutching it in fear. “You were amazing! You really were!”

But Harriet was looking at Ronnie, who was very white and staring at Harriet as though she were a ghost.

“Harriet,” she said, very seriously, “whoever put your name in that goblet - I – I reckon they’re trying to do you in!”

It was as though the last few weeks had never happened - as though Harriet were meeting Ronnie for the first time, right after she’d been made champion.

“Caught on, have you?” said Harriet coldly. “Took you long enough.”

Hermes stood nervously between them, looking from one to the other. Ronnie opened her mouth uncertainly. Harriet knew Ronnie was about to apologize and suddenly she found she didn’t need to hear it.

“It’s okay,” she said, before Ronnie could get the words out. “Forget it.” 

“No,” said Ronnie, “I shouldn’t’ve -”

“Forget it,” Harriet said.

Ronnie grinned nervously at her, and Harriet grinned back. Hermes burst into tears.

“There’s nothing to cry about!” Harriet told him, bewildered.

“You two are so stupid!” he shouted, stamping his foot on the ground, tears splashing down his front. Then, before either of them could stop him, he had given both of them a hug and dashed away, now positively howling.

“Barking mad,” said Ronnie, shaking her head. “Harriet, c’mon, they’ll be putting up your scores...”

Picking up the golden egg and her Firebolt, feeling more elated than she would have believed possible an hour ago, Harriet ducked out of the tent, Ronnie by her side, talking fast.  
“You were the best, you know, no competition. Celia did this weird thing where she Transfigured a rock on the ground... turned it into a dog... she was trying to make the dragon go for the dog instead of her. Well, it was a pretty cool bit of Transfiguration, and it sort of worked, because she did get the egg, but she got burned as well - the dragon changed its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have her than the Labrador; she only just got away. And that Florian boy tried this sort of charm, I think he was trying to put it into a trance - well, that kind of worked too, it went all sleepy, but then it snored, and this great jet of flame shot out, and his trousers caught fire - he put it out with a bit of water out of him wand. And Krum - you won’t believe this, but she didn’t even think of flying! She was probably the best after you, though. Hit it with some sort of spell right in the eye. Only thing is, it went trampling around in agony and squashed half the real eggs - they took marks off for that, she wasn’t supposed to do any damage to them.”

Ronnie drew breath as she and Harriet reached the edge of the enclosure. Now that the Horntail had been taken away, Harriet could see where the five judges were sitting - right at the other end, in raised seats draped in gold.

“It’s marks out of ten from each one,” Ronnie said, and Harriet squinting up the field, saw the first judge - Monsieur Maxime - raise her wand in the air. What hooked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure eight.

“Not bad!” said Ronnie as the crowd applauded. “I suppose he took marks off for your shoulder...” 

Mrs. Crouch came next. She shot a number nine into the air.

“Looking good!” Ronnie yelled, thumping Harriet on the back.

Next, Dumbledore. She too put up a nine. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.  
Lucinda Bagman - ten.

“Ten?” said Harriet in disbelief. “But... I got hurt... What’s she playing at?” 

“Harriet, don’t complain!” Ronnie yelled excitedly.

And now Karkaroff raised her wand. She paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of her wand too - four.

“What?” Ronnie bellowed furiously. “Four? You lousy, biased scumbag, you gave Krum ten!”

But Harriet didn’t care, she wouldn’t have cared if Karkaroff had given her zero; Ronnie’s indignation on her behalf was worth about a hundred points to her. She didn’t tell Ronnie this, of course, but her heart felt lighter than air as she turned to leave the enclosure. And it wasn’t just Ronnie... those weren’t only Gryffindors cheering in the crowd. When it had come to it, when they had seen what she was facing, most of the school had been on her side as well as Celia’s... She didn’t care about the Slytherins, she could stand whatever they threw at her now.

“You’re tied in first place, Harriet! You and Krum!” said Charlie Prewett, hurrying to meet them as they set off back toward the school. “Listen, I’ve got to run, I’ve got to go and send Dad an owl, I swore I’d tell him what happened - but that was unbelievable! Oh yeah - and they told me to tell you you’ve got to hang around for a few more minutes... Bagman wants a word, back in the champions’ tent.”

Ronnie said she would wait, so Harriet reentered the tent, which somehow looked quite different now: friendly and welcoming. She thought back to how she’d felt while dodging the Horntail, and compared it to the long wait before she’d walked out to face it... There was no comparison; the wait had been immeasurably worse. Florian, Celia, and Krum all came in together. One side of Celia’s face was covered in a thick orange paste, which was presumably mending her burn. She grinned at Harriet when she saw her.

“Good one, Harriet.”

“And you,” said Harriet, grinning back.

“Well done, all of you!” said Lucinda Bagman, bouncing into the tent and looking as pleased as though she personally had just got past a dragon. “Now, just a quick few words. You’ve got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth - but we’re giving you something to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those golden eggs you’re all holding, you will see that they open... see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg - because it will tell you what the second task is, and enable you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!”

Harriet left the tent, rejoined Ronnie, and they started to walk back around the edge of the forest, talking hard; Harriet wanted to hear what the other champions had done in more detail. Then, as they rounded the clump of trees behind which Harriet had first heard the dragons roar, a wizard leapt out from behind them.

It was Peter Skeeter. He was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in his hand blended perfectly against them.

“Congratulations, Harriet!” he said, beaming at her. “I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?”

“Yeah, you can have a word,” said Harriet savagely. “Good-bye.” And she set off back to the castle with Ronnie.


	21. The House-Elf Liberation Front

Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes went up to the Owlery that evening to find Pigwidgeon, so that Harriet could send Siri a letter telling her that she had managed to get past her dragon unscathed. On the way, Harriet filled Ronnie in on everything Siri had told her about Karkaroff. Though shocked at first to hear that Karkaroff had been a Death Eater, by the time they entered the Owlery Ronnie was saying that they ought to have suspected it all along.

“Fits, doesn’t it?” she said. “Remember what Black said on the train, about her mum being friends with Karkaroff? Now we know where they knew each other. They were probably running around in masks together at the World Cup... I’ll tell you one thing, though, Harriet, if it was Karkaroff who put your name in the goblet, she’s going to be feeling really stupid now, isn’t she? Didn’t work, did it? You only got a scratch! Come here - I’ll do it -”

Pigwidgeon was so overexcited at the idea of a delivery he was flying around and around Harriet’s head, hooting incessantly. Ronnie snatched Pigwidgeon out of the air and held her still while Harriet attached the letter to her leg.

“There’s no way any of the other tasks are going to be that dangerous, how could they be?” Ronnie went on as she carried Pigwidgeon to the window. “You know what? I reckon you could win this tournament, Harriet, I’m serious.”

Harriet knew that Ronnie was only saying this to make up for her behavior of the last few weeks, but she appreciated it all the same. Hermes, however, leaned against the Owlery wall, folded his arms, and frowned at Ronnie.

“Harriet’s got a long way to go before she finishes this tournament,” he said seriously. “If that was the first task, I hate to think what’s coming next.”

“Right little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” said Ronnie. “You and Professor Trelawney should get together sometime.”

She threw Pigwidgeon out of the window. Pigwidgeon plummeted twelve feet before managing to pull herself back up again; the letter attached to her leg was much longer and heavier than usual - Harriet hadn’t been able to resist giving Siri a blow-by-blow account of exactly how she had swerved, circled, and dodged the Horntail. They watched Pigwidgeon disappear into the darkness, and then Ronnie said, “Well, we’d better get downstairs for your surprise party, Harriet - Frankie and Georgina should have nicked enough food from the kitchens by now.”

Sure enough, when they entered the Gryffindor common room it exploded with cheers and yells again. There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and butterbeer on every surface; Leah Jordan had let off some Filibuster’s Fireworks, so that the air was thick with stars and sparks; and Dinah Thomas, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Harriet zooming around the Horntail’s head on her Firebolt, though a couple showed Celia with her head on fire.

Harriet helped herself to food; she had almost forgotten what it was like to feel properly hungry, and sat down with Ronnie and Hermes. She couldn’t believe how happy she felt; she had Ronnie back on her side, she’d gotten through the first task, and she wouldn’t have to face the second one for three months.

“Blimey, this is heavy,” said Leah Jordan, picking up the golden egg, which Harriet had left on a table, and weighing it in her hands. “Open it, Harriet, go on! Let’s just see what’s inside it!”

“She’s supposed to work out the clue on her own,” Hermes said swiftly. “It’s in the tournament rules...”

“I was supposed to work out how to get past the dragon on my own too,” Harriet muttered, so only Hermes could hear her, and he grinned rather guiltily.

“Yeah, go on, Harriet, open it!” several people echoed.

Leah passed Harriet the egg, and Harriet dug her fingernails into the groove that ran all the way around it and prised it open.

It was hollow and completely empty - but the moment Harriet opened it, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room. The nearest thing to it Harriet had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick’s deathday party, who had all been playing the musical saw.

“Shut it!” Frankie bellowed, her hands over her ears.

“What was that?” said Sinead Finnigan, staring at the egg as Harriet slammed it shut again. “Sounded like a banshee... Maybe you’ve got to get past one of those next, Harriet!”

“It was someone being tortured!” said Netta, who had gone very white and spilled sausage rolls all over the floor. “You’re going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!”

“Don’t be a prat, Netta, that’s illegal,” said Georgina. “They wouldn’t use the Cruciatus Curse on the champions. I thought it sounded a bit like Penelope singing... maybe you’ve got to attack her while she’s in the shower. Harriet.”

“Want a jam tart, Hermes?” said Frankie.

Hermes looked doubtfully at the plate she was offering him. Frankie grinned.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to them. It’s the custard creams you’ve got to watch -”

Netta, who had just bitten into a custard cream, choked and spat it out. Frankie laughed. “Just my little joke, Netta...”

Hermes took a jam tart. Then he said, “Did you get all this from the kitchens, Frankie?”

“Yep,” said Frankie, grinning at him. She put on a high-pitched squeak and imitated a house-elf. “‘Anything we can get you, miss, anything at all!’ They’re dead helpful... get me a roast ox if I said I was peckish.”

“How do you get in there?” Hermes said in an innocently casual sort of voice.

“Easy,” said Frankie, “concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit. Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and -” She stopped and looked suspiciously at her. “Why?”

“Nothing,” said Hermes quickly.

“Going to try and lead the house-elves out on strike now, are you?” said Georgina. “Going to give up all the leaflet stuff and try and stir them up into rebellion?”

Several people chortled. Hermes didn’t answer.

“Don’t you go upsetting them and telling them they’ve got to take clothes and salaries!” said Frankie warningly. “You’ll put them off their cooking!”

Just then, Netta caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.

“Oh - sorry, Netta!” Frankie shouted over all the laughter. “I forgot - it was the custard creams we hexed -”

Within a minute, however, Netta had molted, and once her feathers had fallen off, she reappeared looking entirely normal. She even joined in laughing. 

“Canary Creams!” Frankie shouted to the excitable crowd. “Georgina and I invented them - seven Sickles each, a bargain!”

It was nearly one in the morning when Harriet finally went up to the dormitory with Ronnie, Netta, Sinead, and Dinah. Before she pulled the curtains of her four-poster shut. Harriet set her tiny model of the Hungarian Horntail on the table next to her bed, where it yawned, curled up, and closed its eyes. Really, Harriet thought, as she pulled the hangings on her four-poster closed, Hagrid had a point... they were all right, really, dragons...

The start of December brought wind and sleet to Hogwarts. Drafty though the castle always was in winter. Harriet was glad of its fires and thick walls every time she passed the Durmstrang ship on the lake, which was pitching in the high winds, its black sails billowing against the dark skies. She thought the Beauxbatons caravan was likely to be pretty chilly too. Hagrid, she noticed, was keeping Monsieur Maxime’s horses well provided with their preferred drink of single-malt whiskey; the fumes wafting from the trough in the comer of their paddock was enough to make the entire Care of Magical Creatures class light-headed. This was unhelpful, as they were still tending the horrible skrewts and needed their wits about them.

“I’m not sure whether they hibernate or not,” Hagrid told the shivering class in the windy pumpkin patch next lesson. “Thought we’d jus’ try an see if they fancied a kip... we’ll jus’ settle ‘em down in these boxes...”

There were now only ten skrewts left; apparently their desire to kill one another had not been exercised out of them. Each of them was now approaching six feet in length. Their thick gray armor; their powerful, scuttling legs; their fire-blasting ends; their stings and their suckers, combined to make the skrewts the most repulsive things Harriet had ever seen. The class looked dispiritedly at the enormous boxes Hagrid had brought out, all lined with pillows and fluffy blankets.

“We’ll jus’ lead ‘em in here,” Hagrid said, “an’ put the lids on, and we’ll see what happens.”

But the skrewts, it transpired, did not hibernate, and did not appreciate being forced into pillow-lined boxes and nailed in. Hagrid was soon yelling, “Don panic, now, don’ panic!” while the skrewts rampaged around the pumpkin patch, now strewn with the smoldering wreckage of the boxes. Most of the class - Black, Crabbe, and Goyle in the lead - had fled into Hagrid’s cabin through the back door and barricaded themselves in; Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, however, were among those who remained outside trying to help Hagrid. Together they managed to restrain and tie up nine of the skrewts, though at the cost of numerous burns and cuts; finally, only one skrewt was left.

“Don’ frighten him, now!” Hagrid shouted as Ronnie and Harriet used their wands to shoot jets of fiery sparks at the skrewt, which was advancing menacingly on them, its sting arched, quivering, over its back. “Jus’ try an slip the rope ‘round his sting, so he won hurt any o’ the others!”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that!” Ronnie shouted angrily as she and Harriet backed into the wall of Hagrid’s cabin, still holding the skrewt off with their sparks.

“Well, well, well... this does look like fun.”

Peter Skeeter was leaning on Hagrid’s garden fence, looking in at the mayhem. He was wearing a thick magenta cloak with a furry purple collar today, and his crocodile-skin bag was over his shoulder.

Hagrid launched herself forward on top of the skrewt that was cornering Harriet and Ronnie and flattened it; a blast of fire shot out of its end, withering the pumpkin plants nearby.

“Who’re you?” Hagrid asked Peter Skeeter as she slipped a loop of rope around the skrewt’s sting and tightened it.

“Peter Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter,” Peter replied, beaming at her. His gold teeth glinted.

“Thought Dumbledore said you weren’ allowed inside the school anymore,” said Hagrid, frowning slightly as she got off the slightly squashed skrewt and started tugging it over to its fellows.

Peter acted as though he hadn’t heard what Hagrid had said.

“What are these fascinating creatures called?” He asked, beaming still more widely.

“Blast-Ended Skrewts,” grunted Hagrid.

“Really?” said Peter, apparently full of lively interest. “I’ve never heard of them before... where do they come from?”

Harriet noticed a dull red flush rising up out of Hagrid’s wild black beard, and her heart sank. Where had Hagrid got the skrewts from? 

Hermes, who seemed to be thinking along these lines, said quickly, “They’re very interesting, aren’t they? Aren’t they. Harriet?”

“What? Oh yeah... ouch... interesting,” said Harriet as he stepped on her foot.

“Ah, you’re here. Harriet!” said Peter Skeeter as he looked around. “So you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?”

“Yes,” said Harriet stoutly. Hagrid beamed at her.

“Lovely,” said Peter. “Really lovely. Been teaching long?” he added to Hagrid. Harriet noticed his eyes travel over Dinah (who had a nasty cut across one cheek), Leroy (whose robes were badly singed), Sinead (who was nursing several burnt fingers), and then to the cabin windows, where most of the class stood, their noses pressed against the glass waiting to see if the coast was clear.

“This is o’ny me second year,” said Hagrid.

“Lovely... I don’t suppose you’d like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experience of magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I’m sure you know. We could feature these - er - Bang- Ended Scoots.”

“Blast-Ended Skrewts,” Hagrid said eagerly. “Er - yeah, why not?”

Harriet had a very bad feeling about this, but there was no way of communicating it to Hagrid without Peter Skeeter seeing, so she had to stand and watch in silence as Hagrid and Peter Skeeter made arrangements to meet in the Three Broomsticks for a good long interview later that week. Then the bell rang up at the castle, signalling the end of the lesson.

“Well, good-bye, Harriet!” Peter Skeeter called merrily to her as she set off with Ronnie and Hermes. “Until Friday night, then, Hagrid!”

“He’ll twist everything she says,” Harriet said under her breath.

“Just as long as she didn’t import those skrewts illegally or anything,” said Hermes desperately. They looked at one another - it was exactly the sort of thing Hagrid might do.

“Hagrids been in loads of trouble before, and Dumbledores never sacked her,” said Ronnie consolingly. “Worst that can happen is Hagrid’ll have to get rid of the skrewts. Sorry... did I say worst? I meant best.”

Harriet and Hermes laughed, and, feeling slightly more cheerful, went off to lunch.

Harriet thoroughly enjoyed double Divination that afternoon; they were still doing star charts and predictions, but now that she and Ronnie were friends once more, the whole thing seemed very funny again. Professor Trelawney, who had been so pleased with the pair of them when they had been predicting their own horrific deaths, quickly became irritated as they sniggered through his explanation of the various ways in which Pluto could disrupt everyday life.

“I would think,” he said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal his obvious annoyance, “that some of us” - he stared very meaningfully at Harriet- “might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen during my crystal gazing last night. As I sat here, absorbed in my needlework, the urge to consult the orb overpowered me. I arose, I settled myself before it, and I gazed into its crystalline depths... and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?”

“An ugly old bat in outsize specs?” Ronnie muttered under her breath.

Harriet fought hard to keep her face straight.

“Death, my dears.”

Paavan and Leroy both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified.

“Yes,” said Professor Trelawney, nodding impressively, “it comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower... ever lower over the castle...” He stared pointedly at Harriet, who yawned very widely and obviously.

“It’d be a bit more impressive if he hadn’t done it about eighty times before,” Harriet said as they finally regained the fresh air of the staircase beneath Professor Trelawney’s room. “But if I’d dropped dead every time he’s told me I’m going to, I’d be a medical miracle.”

“You’d be a sort of extra-concentrated ghost,” said Ronnie, chortling, as they passed the Bloody Baron going in the opposite direction, his wide eyes staring sinisterly.

“At least we didn’t get homework. I hope Hermes got loads off Professor Vector, I love not working when he is...”

But Hermes wasn’t at dinner, nor was he in the library when they went to look for him afterward. The only person in there was Viktoria Krum. Ronnie hovered behind the bookshelves for a while, watching Krum, debating in whispers with Harriet whether she should ask for an autograph - but then Ronnie realized that six or seven boys were lurking in the next row of books, debating exactly the same thing, and she lost her enthusiasm for the idea.

“Wonder where he’s got to?” Ronnie said as she and Harriet went back to Gryffindor Tower. “Dunno... balderdash.”

But the Fat Lady had barely begun to swing forward when the sound of racing feet behind them announced Hermes’ arrival.

“Harriet!” he panted, skidding to a halt beside her, the Fat Lady stared down at her, eyebrows raised. “Harriet, you’ve got to come - you’ve got to come, the most amazing thing’s happened- please -”

He seized Harriet’s arm and started to try to drag her back along the corridor. “What’s the matter?” Harriet said.

“I’ll show you when we get there - oh come on, quick -”

Harriet looked around at Ronnie; she looked back at Harriet, intrigued.

“Okay,” Harriet said, starting off back down the corridor with Hermes, Ronnie hurrying to keep up.

“Oh don’t mind me!” the Fat Lady called irritably after them. “Don’t apologize for bothering me! I’ll just hang here, wide open, until you get back, shall I?”

“Yeah, thanks!” Ronnie shouted over her shoulder.

“Hermes, where are we going?” Harriet asked, after he had led them down through six floors, and started down the marble staircase into the entrance hall.

“You’ll see, you’ll see in a minute!” said Hermes excitedly.

He turned left at the bottom of the staircase and hurried toward the door through which Celia Diggory had gone the night after the Goblet of Fire had regurgitated her and Harriet’s names. Harriet had never been through here before. She and Ronnie followed Hermes down a flight of stone steps, but instead of ending up in a gloomy underground passage like the one that led to Prince’s dungeon, they found themselves in a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches, and decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food.

“Oh hang on...” said Harriet slowly, halfway down the corridor. “Wait a minute, Hermes...”

“What?” He turned around to look at her, anticipation all over his face. 

“I know what this is about,” said Harriet.

She nudged Ronnie and pointed to the painting just behind Hermes. It showed a gigantic silver fruit bowl.

“Hermes!” said Ronnie, cottoning on. “You’re trying to rope us into that spew stuff again!” 

“No, no, I’m not!” he said hastily. “And it’s not spew, Ronnie -”

“Changed the name, have you?” said Ronnie, frowning at him. “What are we now, then, the House-Elf Liberation Front? I’m not barging into that kitchen and trying to make them stop work, I’m not doing it -”

“I’m not asking you to!” Hermes said impatiently. “I came down here just now, to talk to them all, and I found - oh come on, Harriet, I want to show you!”

He seized her arm again, pulled her in front of the picture of the giant fruit bowl, stretched out his forefinger, and tickled the huge green pear. It began to squirm, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle. Hermes seized it, pulled the door open, and pushed Harriet hard in the back, forcing her inside.

She had one brief glimpse of an enormous, high-ceilinged room, large as the Great Hall above it, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end, when something small hurtled toward her from the middle of the room, squealing, “Harriet Evans, miss! Harriet Evans!”

Next second all the wind had been knocked out of her as the squealing elf hit her hard in the midriff, hugging her so tightly she thought her ribs would break.

“D-Dobby?” Harriet gasped.

“It is Dobby, miss, it is!” squealed the voice from somewhere around her navel. “Dobby has been hoping and hoping to see Harriet Evans, miss, and Harriet Evans has come to see him, miss!”

Dobby let go and stepped back a few paces, beaming up at Harriet, his enormous, green, tennis-ball-shaped eyes brimming with tears of happiness. He looked almost exactly as Harriet remembered him; the pencil-shaped nose, the batlike ears, the long fingers and feet - all except the clothes, which were very different. When Dobby had worked for the Blacks, he had always worn the same filthy old pillowcase. Now, however, he was wearing the strangest assortment of garments Harriet had ever seen; he had done an even worse job of dressing himself than the wizards at the World Cup. He was wearing a tea cozy for a hat, on which he had pinned a number of bright badges; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children’s soccer shorts, and odd socks. One of these, Harriet saw, was the black one Harriet had removed from her own foot and tricked Mrs. Black into giving Dobby, thereby setting Dobby free. The other was covered in pink and orange stripes.

“Dobby, what’re you doing here?” Harriet said in amazement.

“Dobby has come to work at Hogwarts, miss!” Dobby squealed excitedly. “Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby and Winky jobs, miss!”

“Winky?” said Harriet. “She’s here too?”

“Yes, miss, yes!” said Dobby, and he seized Harriet’s hand and pulled her off into the kitchen between the four long wooden tables that stood there. Each of these tables, Harriet noticed as she passed them, was positioned exactly beneath the four House tables above, in the Great Hall. At the moment, they were clear of food, dinner having finished, but she supposed that an hour ago they had been laden with dishes that were then sent up through the ceiling to their counterparts above.

At least a hundred little elves were standing around the kitchen, beaming, bowing, and curtsying as Dobby led Harriet past them. They were all wearing the same uniform: a tea towel stamped with the Hogwarts crest, and tied, as Winky’s had been, like a toga.

Dobby stopped in front of the brick fireplace and pointed. “Winky, miss!” he said.

Winky was sitting on a stool by the fire. Unlike Dobby, she had obviously not foraged for clothes. She was wearing a neat little skirt and blouse with a matching blue hat, which had holes in it for her large ears. However, while every one of Dobby’s strange collection of garments was so clean and well cared for that it looked brand-new, Winky was plainly not taking care other clothes at all. There were soup stains all down her blouse and a burn in her skirt.

“Hello, Winky,” said Harriet.

Winky’s lip quivered. Then she burst into tears, which spilled out of her great brown eyes and splashed down her front, just as they had done at the Quidditch World Cup.

“Oh dear,” said Hermes. He and Ronnie had followed Harriet and Dobby to the end of the kitchen. “Winky, don’t cry, please don’t...”

But Winky cried harder than ever. Dobby, on the other hand, beamed up at Harriet. “Would Harriet Evans like a cup of tea?” he squeaked loudly, over Winky’s sobs. 

“Er - yeah, okay,” said Harriet.

Instantly, about six house-elves came trotting up behind her, bearing a large silver tray laden with a teapot, cups for Harriet, Ronnie, and Hermes, a milk jug, and a large plate of biscuits.

“Good service!” Ronnie said, in an impressed voice. Hermes frowned at her, but the elves all looked delighted; they bowed very low and retreated.

“How long have you been here, Dobby?” Harriet asked as Dobby handed around the tea.

“Only a week, Harriet Evans, miss!” said Dobby happily. “Dobby came to see Professor Dumbledore, miss. You see, miss, it is very difficult for a house-elf who has been dismissed to get a new position, miss, very difficult indeed -”

At this, Winky howled even harder, her squashed-tomato of a nose dribbling all down her front, though she made no effort to stem the flow.

“Dobby has traveled the country for two whole years, miss, trying to find work!” Dobby squeaked. “But Dobby hasn’t found work, miss, because Dobby wants paying now!”

The house-elves all around the kitchen, who had been listening and watching with interest, all looked away at these words, as though Dobby had said something rude and embarrassing. Hermes, however, said, “Good for you, Dobby!”

“Thank you, sir!” said Dobby, grinning toothily at him. “But most wizards doesn’t want a house-elf who wants paying, sir. ‘That’s not the point of a house-elf,’ they says, and they slammed the door in Dobby’s face! Dobby likes work, but he wants to wear clothes and he wants to be paid. Harriet Evans... Dobby likes being free!”

The Hogwarts house-elves had now started edging away from Dobby, as though he were carrying something contagious. Winky, however, remained where she was, though there was a definite increase in the volume other crying.

“And then, Harriet Evans, Dobby goes to visit Winky, and finds out Winky has been freed too, miss!” said Dobby delightedly.

At this, Winky flung herself forward off her stool and lay face-down on the flagged stone floor, beating her tiny fists upon it and positively screaming with misery. Hermes hastily dropped down to his knees beside her and tried to comfort her, but nothing he said made the slightest difference. Dobby continued with his story, shouting shrilly over Winky’s screeches.

“And then Dobby had the idea, Harriet Evans, miss! ‘Why doesn’t Dobby and Winky find work together?’ Dobby says. ‘Where is there enough work for two house elves?’ says Winky. And Dobby thinks, and it comes to him, miss! Hogwarts! So Dobby and Winky came to see Professor Dumbledore, miss, and Professor Dumbledore took us on!”

Dobby beamed very brightly, and happy tears welled in his eyes again.

“And Professor Dumbledore says she will pay Dobby, miss, if Dobby wants paying! And so Dobby is a free elf, miss, and Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!”

“That’s not very much!” Hermes shouted indignantly from the floor, over Winky’s continued screaming and fist-beating.

“Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off,” said Dobby, suddenly giving a little shiver, as though the prospect of so much leisure and riches were frightening, “but Dobby beat her down, sir... Dobby likes freedom, sir, but he isn’t wanting too much, sir, he likes work better.”

“And how much is Professor Dumbledore paying you, Winky?” Hermes asked kindly.

If he had thought this would cheer up Winky, he was wildly mistaken. Winky did stop crying, but when she sat up she was glaring at Hermes through her massive brown eyes, her whole face sopping wet and suddenly furious.

“Winky is a disgraced elf, but Winky is not yet getting paid!” she squeaked. “Winky is not sunk so low as that! Winky is properly ashamed of being freed!”

“Ashamed?” said Hermes blankly. “But - Winky, come on! It’s Mrs. Crouch who should be ashamed, not you! You didn’t do anything wrong, she was really horrible to you -”

But at these words, Winky clapped her hands over the holes in her hat, flattening her ears so that she couldn’t hear a word, and screeched, “You is not insulting my mistress, sir! You is not insulting Mrs. Crouch! Mrs. Crouch is a good witch, sir! Mr. Crouch is right to sack bad Winky!”

“Winky is having trouble adjusting, Harriet Evans,” squeaked Dobby confidentially. “Winky forgets she is not bound to Mrs. Crouch anymore; she is allowed to speak her mind now, but she won’t do it.”

“Can’t house-elves speak their minds about their mistresses, then?” Harriet asked.

“Oh no, miss, no,” said Dobby, looking suddenly serious. “‘Tis part of the house-elf’s enslavement, miss. We keeps their secrets and our silence, miss. We upholds the family’s honor, and we never speaks ill of them - though Professor Dumbledore told Dobby she does not insist upon this. Professor Dumbledore said we is free to - to-”

Dobby looked suddenly nervous and beckoned Harriet closer. Harriet bent forward.

Dobby whispered, “She said we is free to call her a - a barmy old codger if we likes, miss!” Dobby gave a frightened sort of giggle.

“But Dobby is not wanting to, Harriet Evans,” he said, talking normally again, and shaking his head so that his ears flapped. “Dobby likes Professor Dumbledore very much, miss, and is proud to keep her secrets and our silence for her.”

“But you can say what you like about the Blacks now?” Harriet asked him, grinning. A slightly fearful look came into Dobby’s immense eyes.

“Dobby - Dobby could,” he said doubtfully. He squared his small shoulders. “Dobby could tell Harriet Evans that his old mistresses were - were - bad Dark witches.”

Dobby stood for a moment, quivering all over, horror-struck by his own daring - then he rushed over to the nearest table and began banging his head on it very hard, squealing, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!”

Harriet seized Dobby by the back of his tie and pulled him away from the table.

“Thank you. Harriet Evans, thank you,” said Dobby breathlessly, rubbing his head.

“You just need a bit of practice,” Harriet said.

“Practice!” squealed Winky furiously. “You is ought to be ashamed of yourself, Dobby, talking that way about your mistresses!”

“They isn’t my masters anymore, Winky!” said Dobby defiantly. “Dobby doesn’t care what they think anymore!”

“Oh you is a bad elf, Dobby!” moaned Winky, tears leaking down her face once more. “My poor Mrs. Crouch, what is she doing without Winky? She is needing me, she is needing my help! I is looking after the Crouches all my life, and my mother is doing it before me, and my grandmother is doing it before her... oh what is they saying if they knew Winky was freed? Oh the shame, the shame!” She buried her face in her skirt again and bawled.

“Winky,” said Hermes firmly, “I’m quite sure Mrs. Crouch is getting along perfectly well without you. We’ve seen her, you know -”

“You is seeing my mistress?” said Winky breathlessly, raising her tearstained face out of her skirt once more and goggling at Hermes. “You is seeing her here at Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” said Hermes, “she and Mrs. Bagman are judges in the Triwizard Tournament.”

“Mrs. Bagman comes too?” squeaked Winky, and to Harriet’s great surprise (and Ronnie’s and Hermes’ too, by the looks on their faces), she looked angry again. “Mrs. Bagman is a bad witch! A very bad witch! My mistress isn’t liking her, oh no, not at all!”

“Bagman - bad?” said Harriet.

“Oh yes,” Winky said, nodding her head furiously, “My mistress is telling Winky some things! But Winky is not saying... Winky - Winky keeps her mistress’s secrets...”

She dissolved yet again in tears; they could hear her sobbing into her skirt, “Poor mistress, poor mistress, no Winky to help her no more!”

They couldn’t get another sensible word out of Winky. They left her to her crying and finished their tea, while Dobby chatted happily about his life as a free elf and his plans for his wages.

“Dobby is going to buy a sweater next, Harriet Evans!” he said happily, pointing at his bare chest,

“Tell you what, Dobby,” said Ronnie, who seemed to have taken a great liking to the elf, “I’ll give you the one my dad knits me this Christmas, I always get one from him. You don’t mind maroon, do you?”

Dobby was delighted.

“We might have to shrink it a bit to fit you,” Ronnie told him, “but it’ll go well with your tea cozy.”

As they prepared to take their leave, many of the surrounding elves pressed in upon them, offering snacks to take back upstairs. Hermes refused, with a pained look at the way the elves kept bowing and curtsying, but Harriet and Ronnie loaded their pockets with cream cakes and pies.

“Thanks a lot!” Harriet said to the elves, who had all clustered around the door to say good night. “See you, Dobby!”

“Harriet Evans... can Dobby come and see you sometimes, miss?” Dobby asked tentatively. 

“‘Course you can,” said Harriet, and Dobby beamed.

“You know what?” said Ronnie, once she, Hermes, and Harriet had left the kitchens behind and were climbing the steps into the entrance hall again. “All these years I’ve been really impressed with Frankie and Georgina, nicking food from the kitchens - well, it’s not exactly difficult, is it? They can’t wait to give it away!”

“I think this is the best thing that could have happened to those elves, you know,” said Hermes, leading the way back up the marble staircase. “Dobby coming to work here, I mean. The other elves will see how happy he is, being free, and slowly it’ll dawn on them that they want that too!”

“Let’s hope they don’t look too closely at Winky,” said Harriet.

“Oh she’ll cheer up,” said Hermes, though he sounded a bit doubtful. “Once the shock’s worn off, and she’s got used to Hogwarts, she’ll see how much better off she is without that Crouch woman.”

“She seems to love her,” said Ronnie thickly (she had just started on a cream cake).

“Doesn’t think much of Bagman, though, does she?” said Harriet. “Wonder what Crouch says at home about her?”

“Probably says she’s not a very good Head of Department,” said Hermes, “and let’s face it... she’s got a point, hasn’t she?”

“I’d still rather work for her than old Crouch,” said Ronnie. “At least Bagman’s got a sense of humor.”

“Don’t let Penelope hear you saying that,” Hermes said, smiling slightly.

“Yeah, well, Penelope wouldn’t want to work for anyone with a sense of humor, would she?” said Ronnie, now starting on a chocolate eclair. “Penelope wouldn’t recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of her wearing Dobby’s tea cozy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Read the first book in the series: Harriet Evans and the Philosopher’s Stone -  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/20652788
> 
> Read the second book in the series: Harriet Evans and the Chamber of Secrets - https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044717
> 
> Read the third book in the series: Harriet Evans and the Prisoner of Azkaban - https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121445


End file.
